Organised By
Organised By
Aim:
Myths and misconceptions related to diabetes are very common. They usually interfere with self-management plans for people with diabetes leading to undesirable complications.
Methodology:
Through convenient sampling healthcare professionals (HCPs) and people with diabetes (PWD) were given a structured questionnaire that had items about general dietary misconceptions, glycemic response of food items, dietary misconceptions regarding wound and nutritional knowledge related to diabetes. On the basis of scores attained, subjects were categorized as having good, fair or poor knowledge.
Result:
A total of 258 HCPs and a total of 261 PWD were included in the study.
Overall 52.7% HCPs had good knowledge whereas among people with diabetes only 1.9% had good knowledge. (p=<0.001). However, in some areas of general dietary misconception, PWD had scored significantly better than HCPs. (P=0.02)
Proportion of HCPs having good knowledge was significantly higher among dietitians (70%) followed by medical doctors (53.7%), diabetes educators (53.6%), nurses (18.8%)and other HCPs (14.3%) (p-value<0.00).
Among PWD proportion of subjects having good knowledge was significantly higher (6.0%) among people with longer duration of diabetes as compared to people with shorter duration of diabetes (1.5%, P<0.01) as well as among people with type-2 diabetes (2.8%) as compared to people with type-1 diabetes (0%, P<0.05).
Conclusion:
This study identified diabetes related diet and nutrition knowledge needs of HCPs and PWD, and evidenced the massive need to promote nutritional knowledge programs for HCPs and people with diabetes.