ABSTRACT
Diabetes Mellitus (DM) represents one of the biggest challenges in our country affecting hundred millions of people worldwide, both in developed countries and in developing ones. The objectives of the study were to assess the proportion of diagnosed and undiagnosed cases of diabetes mellitus among above 40 years old population in a selected rural area in Jamalpur, Bangladesh. A descriptive type of cross sectional study was conducted from September 2018 to December 2018. The respondents of the study were taken purposively. Using semi-structured questionnaire data were derived from face to face interview. The data were analyzed by using statistical for social science package (SPSS) 25.0 version for data entry and analysis. 53.4% of the respondents were aged between 40-50 years and 60.6% were female, 98.3% were Muslim, 57.2% were housewife. The study revealed that nearly half of the respondents (44.9%) had no formal education, 27.1% had primary, 14.8% had secondary, 8.9% had graduate and above and 4.2% had higher secondary education. 43.6% of the respondents' monthly family income had <10000 BDT. 27.5% had family history of diabetes. 33.5% of the respondents had body weight of 51-60 kg and 20.8% were overweight and only 2.1% were obese. Active respondents were 35.6%, 28.8% were moderately active, 24.6% were mildly active and 11% were sedentary in their life style. Majority of the respondents (72.5%) did not perform regular exercise. Excessive sweet or sugar regularly has taken 32.6% of the respondents. About diabetes knew 91.5% of the respondents and only 8.5% did not know about diabetes. Majority of the respondents (72.9%) did not know how diabetes & its complications can be prevented. This study found that 54.1% of the respondents continued oral drugs/insulin regularly for treatment of diabetes mellitus. Most of the respondents (88.1%) did not monitor blood glucose level regularly. 97.5% of the respondents did not attend any diabetes awareness program. The prevalence of diabetes was 22.88%. The proportion of diagnosed diabetic cases was 15.7% and the proportion of undiagnosed diabetic was 7.2% according to their fasting blood sugar. A relatively high proportion of diabetic cases were observed in that rural Bangladeshi population. The study found that about one third of the diabetic cases were undiagnosed and untreated which was significant and alarming. The study showed that the association between education of the respondents and status of diabetes was statistically strongly significant (p<0.001). The study revealed that there was strong association between family history of diabetes of the respondents and status of diabetes (p=0.006).
