Awareness of diabetic foot disease amongst patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending the chronic outpatients department at a regional hospital in Durban, South Africa

African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine

 
 
Field Value
 
Title Awareness of diabetic foot disease amongst patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus attending the chronic outpatients department at a regional hospital in Durban, South Africa
 
Creator Goie, Thea T. Naidoo, Mergan
 
Subject Family Medicine Diabetic foot disease; Type 2 diabetes mellitus; awareness
Description Background: Diabetic foot disease (DFD) is a major challenge for the healthcare system, with enormous economic consequences for people living with diabetes, their families, and society, affecting both quality of life and quality of care. The study aim was to assess the level of awareness of DFD amongst patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).Methods: An observational descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted at the chronic outpatients department of a regional hospital in Durban, South Africa.Results: Two hundred participants with T2DM participated in the study. Ninety-one per cent of participants were either overweight or obese. Ninety-two per cent of participants had concomitant hypertension (57.5%), dyslipidaemia (26.7%) and eye disease (7.2%). Seventy-six per cent reported altered sensation in their lower limbs, and 90% reported having no previous DFD education. Only 22.2% of participants reported having examined their feet, but only when they experienced a problem. Participants achieved mediocre scores for knowledge (mean 4.45, standard deviation (s.d.) 2.201, confidence interval (CI) 4.2–4.7) and practice (mean 11.09, s.d. 2.233, CI 10.8–11.5) on diabetic foot care (DFC). Those who had a higher level of education and who were less than 65 years old had a significantly better score for previous foot care education (p 0.05).Conclusion: The study demonstrated that awareness of DFD was suboptimal, based on current DFC guidelines. To minimise the burden of DFD, improved screening and prevention programmes as well as patient education should be provided to T2DM patients, whilst maintaining an aggressive approach to risk factor modifications, footwear and identifying the at-risk foot.
 
Publisher AOSIS
 
Contributor University of KwaZulu-Natal
Date 2016-11-17
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion — observational descriptive cross-sectional study
Format text/html application/octet-stream text/xml application/pdf
Identifier 10.4102/phcfm.v8i1.1170
 
Source African Journal of Primary Health Care & Family Medicine; Vol 8, No 1 (2016); 8 pages 2071-2936 2071-2928
 
Language eng
 
Relation
The following web links (URLs) may trigger a file download or direct you to an alternative webpage to gain access to a publication file format of the published article:

https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1170/1902 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1170/1901 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1170/1903 https://phcfm.org/index.php/phcfm/article/view/1170/1887
 
Coverage Durban, South Africa October 2014 Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus patients 18 years and older, on treatment for a minimum of twelve months
Rights Copyright (c) 2016 Thea T. Goie, Mergan Naidoo https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
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