Abstract

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is growing fast the world is witnessing. The incidence of alarming concern health care providers is rapidly rising. The main burden of this disease will fall on all developing countries. The number of diabetic patients will reach 300 million by the end of 2025 it is known through the estimation mostly developing countries will have such dramatic and significant impacts.

Methodology: The quantitative descriptive cross-sectional study design was used with convenient sampling (n = 200). There was a relatively good knowledge (76.16%) among patients on dietary recommendations in management of type 2 DM. Older patients had lower level of education on recommended dietary practices.

Conclusion:

• Consequently, knowledge on need to carry candy as a first aid when one is hypoglycemic was low. In addition, knowledge on the need for patients with type 2 DM to keep the times one consume their meals (meal timings) as well as consume snacks in between main meals in order to reduce incidences of hypoglycemia was low. Level of formal education of patients with type 2 DM influenced strongly the assimilation of information provided by healthcare providers. Age was also strongly associated with how much a patient was able to grasp information and remember. Continuous education on recommended dietary practices was noted as important.
• Compliance to recommended dietary practices was 59.6%. Unlike the level of knowledge which was influenced by various demographic characteristics like age and level of formal education, compliance was not influenced by any of the assessed demographic factors. While the level of knowledge was high at 76.2%, this was found not to directly translate to compliance to recommended dietary practices in management of type 2 DM.
• Compliance to recommended practices was not influenced by level of knowledge on recommended dietary practices in management of type 2 DM. Support by those related/living with the patients was reported as one of the strong facilitator towards compliance. Management of type 2 DM was reported to be resource intense; financially and time wise. It was therefore sometimes difficult for patients to balance all aspects of recommendations.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus; Nutrition Knowledge; Dietary Practice

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Citation

Citation: Kimutai Sagam Caleb. “Association between Nutrition Knowledge on Diabetes and Dietary Practice of People Living with Diabetes Mellitus in Nandi County". Acta Scientific Nutritional Health 4.7 (2020): 18-27.

Copyright

Copyright: © 2020 Kimutai Sagam Caleb. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.