Self-Management Behaviors among patients with Type 2 Diabetes at Manipal Teaching Hospital, Nepal

Diabetes is a serious and costly disease which is becoming increasingly common in Nepalese people. Public awareness of the self management behaviors of diabetes are an important step towards its control. The aim of this study was to assess the current status of diabetes self-management behaviors among type 2 diabetes patients.

A cross-sectional descriptive research design was used in this study. The non-probability convenience sampling technique was used to select the 115 diabetes type 2 patients attending medical OPD of Manipal Teaching Hospital during September month of 2016 and adopted version of Diabetes Self-management Questionnaire(DSMQ) was used to collect the data.

The majority 68(59.1%) participants were between the age group of 36–60 years with mean age 60 years and more than half 62(53.9%) were female. The majority 75(68.2%) participants were following good glucose management practice but more than half 61(53%) participants had poor dietary control. More than half 58(52.7%) participants had poor self care in overall. The self-management behaviors were associated with sex, educational status, occupation and blood glucose level of the participants.

The majority of diabetes patients are good in glucose management but they are poor in diet control behavior and overall diabetes self-management behavior which are very important components for preventing diabetes related complications. So, public awareness program can be instituted in order to boost up the self-management behaviors among diabetes patients.