Compliance to Diabetes Self-management in Rural El-Mina, Egypt

Background: Diabetes is a serious public health problem that threatens the quality of life of patiens with diabetes, the success of long-term maintenance therapy for diabetes depends largely on the patients' compliance with a therapeutic plan.

Aim Of This Study: To assess compliance of diabetic patients to diabetes self-Management in rural El Minia, and to determine the associated factors related to it.

Subjects And Method: Cross sectional analytic study. Rural adults identified as having previously diagnosed diabetes were recruited to participate in this study. A total of 206 rural community diabetics were randomly chosen and subjected to interview questionnaire on history of diabetes, type of medication, self-management of diabetes as glucose examination, dietary modification, and eye examination.

Results: Mean age of participants was 54 +/- 6.3 years and mean duration of diabetes was 12 +/- 8 years. Nearly one third of the patients used insulin and more than half used oral hypoglycemic. The results of this study revealed that good adherence to diabetes self-management was reported among 41.7% of adult diabetic patients who show good adherence to diet instructions, but only 21.4% to blood glucose test. There was no gender difference regarding self care of diabetes. Younger age group had more glycemic control than older age; longer duration of diabetes was significantly associated with poor glycemic control.

Conclusion: Compliance to self-management of diabetes is suboptimal among rural adult community diabetic.