Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice of Diabetes in Rural Bangladesh: The Bangladesh Population Based Diabetes and Eye Study
Publication Date
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Peer Review Status
Abstract
Background: To assess the Knowledge, Attitudes and Practice (KAP) amongst the general community regarding type 2diabetes mellitus (DM) in rural Bangladesh.
Methods: Data was collected using cluster random sampling from 3104 adults residing in a rural district in Bangladesh. Participants underwent a KAP questionnaire survey regarding assessing diabetes, socio-demographic and medical history. Descriptive, Chi-square and regression analyses were performed.
Results: Participants were aged between 30 and 89 years (M = 51, SD = 11.8) and 65.5% were female. The prevalence of diabetes was found to be 8.3%. The majority (93%) reported to have heard of diabetes, yet only 4% knew what a glucose tolerance test was. Only 50% reported that they knew physical inactivity was a risk factor. Age, gender, level of education and socio-economic status (SES) were significantly associated with KAP. A lower proportion (41%) of older participants (aged >65 years) reported that they knew that dietary modifications assist in diabetes control compared to those aged less than 35 years (69%), p,0.001. Males (b = 0.393, 95% CI = 0.142–0.643), and any level of education compared to no schooling (b = 0.726, 95% CI = 0.596, 0.857) reported significantly more knowledge, after multivariate adjustments for covariates. Participants aged under 35 years, (odds ratio (OR) = 1.73, 95% CI = 1.22–2.43) had significantly higher positive attitudes towards treatments of diabetes compared to those aged $65 years. Of the 99 people with known diabetes, more than 50% (n = 52) never had their blood sugar levels checked since diagnosis.
Conclusions: Knowledge of diabetes and its risk factors is very limited in rural Bangladesh, even in persons diagnosed with type 2 DM. The development of public health programmes to increase knowledge of diabetes and its complications is required to assist people living in rural Bangladesh to control and management of diabetes.
Description
Keywords
Citation
Amirul Islam, F. M., Chakrabarti, R., Dirani, M., Islam, M. T., Ormsby, G.,... Finger, R. P. (2014). Knowledge, attitudes and practice of diabetes in rural Bangladesh: The Bangladesh population based diabetes and eye study. PLoS ONE, 9(10), e110368. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0110368