Nutritional Knowledge and Dietary Habits among Diabetic Patients at the Bono Regional Hospital, Sunyani, Ghana

Background: The rising mortality rate of diabetes mellitus and the upsurge in diabetes complications is very alarming. This has been attributed to the poor knowledge patients living with diabetes have on diabetes and its management, especially the nutritional management.

Objective: This study sought to explore the knowledge on knowledge on diabetes and nutrition among patients living with diabetes mellitus who attended clinic at the Bono Regional Hospital.

Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive quantitative research design was used for this study. Simple random sampling was used to recruit 150 participants for the study. The participants were interviewed using a semi-structured questionnaire. Respondents were recruited from the clinic until the desired sample size was obtained. A pre-tested interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect data. Dietary habits were assessed using food frequency questionnaire and BMI was assessed following standard procedure and compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) standards. Data was analyzed using IBM SPSS (Version 20). Chi-square test was used to determine the association between variables. The level of significance was set at p-value less than 5%.

Results: The study revealed that the participants have adequate knowledge on DM and Nutrition. Majority of Participants in had high knowledge on diabetes and nutrition, 77.3%. This was associated with adequate education by their health care providers and with strong beliefs in modern medicines as well as diet therapy, which influenced attitudes and practices on Diabetes. Overall, good dietary practice among the participants was 57.3%. Age and level of education were found to be significantly associated with knowledge of diabetes and nutrition whiles gender, religion, occupation, ethnicity, marital status were not significantly associated with knowledge level of diabetes and nutrition.