To Assess Medication Compliance and Self Care Practices in Patients with Diabetes Mellitus

ABSTRACT

Background: The global rise in the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and a wide variation in compliance to self-management of diabetes has become a challenging health care problem. Poor glycaemic control can lead to treatment failures and accelerated development of various diabetes-related complications. Our study aims to find out the compliance rate of the patients with type 2 diabetes to the prescribed medications and to find out its comparison across various socio-demographic variables. Methods: This is a cross sectional questionnaire based study that was conducted amongst patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. A total of 136 patients were included in the study and interviewed by using a pre tested, structured interview schedule which captured socio-demographic variables and Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire covering different aspects of diabetes self-management. Participants rate the extent to which each description applies to them on a four-point Likert scale. Results: Mean age of the participants was 44.53 ± 8.13. The mean duration of diabetes was 7.63 ± 6.49 years. The overall compliance score in our participants was 23.44 ± 4.17. None of the participants stated that they check their blood sugar levels regularly. Of self-care activities, 69.1% of the patients agree that they do not skip their diabetes medication. Compliance to the diabetes self-care decreased significantly with an increase in age (p<0.001) and duration of disease (p<0.01). The mean compliance score was also significantly lower among those who were illiterate (p<0.001) and unskilled workers (p=0.02). Conclusion: It can be concluded that the compliance score was not good among the participants. Significant association have been found between mean compliance scores and increasing age, illiteracy, unskilled occupation and longer duration of disease.