The demand for health education among patients with diabetes

Education of the sick with diabetes has been a stable element of treatment for plenty of years. However, the system of trainings related to this disease is still not perfect and the knowledge of patients about this subject is insufficient. The objective of the study was to determine the demand for health education among patients with diabetes by means of evaluating the level of their knowledge. The study included 130 people suffering from diabetes at the age from 18 to 96 with the disease duration ranging from one year to above 20 years. The level of patients' knowledge about this disease was examined with the use of the survey questionnaire, especially designed for these reasons. The applied survey consisted of 54 questions of which a substantial part was concerned with general information about people suffering from diabetes. Further sections of the survey explored the knowledge about the nature of the disease, its complications, self-control, lifestyle and contained the questions concerning the sources of the acquired knowledge on this subject, participation in educational meetings and trainings concerning the issue of coping with diabetes as well as self-evaluation of the level of knowledge. The survey shows that 54.6% of the respondents cannot explain the mechanisms of type 1 diabetes, while 39.2% of the patients do not know the nature of type 2 diabetes. None of the patients was able to enumerate all the symptoms of hypoglycemia and hyperglycemia or the organs and systems most frequently affected by complications. More than 1/3 of the subjects did not know the proper nutrition rules in diabetes. None of the respondents was able to specify correctly all the control examinations and tests that should be taken at least once a year or once every six months. Only 6.1% of the patients evaluated their knowledge about diabetes at a very good degree, while 53.1% of them defined it as good. They were mostly insulin dependent patients under the care of diabetology clinics. However, as many as 40.8% of the respondents considered their level of knowledge unsatisfactory. The research results showed that the leading source of knowledge about the nature of the disease and ways of coping with it were diabetologists (61.5%), followed by nurses (33.8%) and general practitioners (26.1%). The survey results indicate the need for the increased accessibility and intensity of the educational activities in diabetological health care.