Knowledge, attitudes and practices amongst diabetes mellitus patients about exercise at a primary health center in Gaborone Botswana

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is a chronic lifestyle disease without a cure, and medical emphasis is on management to avoid short and long term diabetes related problems/complications. It is very important for patients to be knowledgeable on the role of diet, physical exercise and self-monitoring. The main objective of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitudes and practices of the diabetes mellitus patients about the benefit of physical activity. METHODOLOGY: The was a cross sectional descriptive study that assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practices amongst diabetes mellitus patients on physical activity at Block 6 clinic in Gaborone, Botswana. The researcher administered questionnaires with individual patients to investigate how well they understood their condition, their attitude towards exercise and the extent to which they have adopted exercise as part of their diabetes control. A total of 140 diabetic patients participated in the study. RESULTS: The results of the study revealed that participants had good knowledge of symptoms of diabetes (97.9%), complications that can result when diabetes is not well controlled (76.4%) and urine analysis test (65%). The results also showed that majority of the participants had fair knowledge (62.1%) and only (20.0%) had good knowledge; (89.4%) had positive attitude, and only 10.6% had negative attitude towards physical exercise. The results show that 59.6% had low level of physical activity, 31.3% did not exercise, whilst only 9.1% reported that they exercised adequately. CONCLUSION The study reveals a variation between diabetes related health knowledge, attitude, and practice in among those who are affected by diabetes. The knowledge and practice levels were relatively low. Nevertheless majority of the study participants had positive attitude towards Physical Activity. Keywords: Diabetes, knowledge, attitude, Practice, Physical