Self care in diabetes: a study amongst diabetics in an urban community

Background: Self care of diabetes is essential for control of disease and improvement of quality of patients' life. The aim of this study was to assess the self care practices amongst diabetics and factors influencing self-care practice of patients.Methods:This is a descriptive community based cross-sectional study carried out on the 69 known diabetic patients in the urban setting in Pune using a questionnaire including SDSCA (Revised Version). The SDSCA measure is a brief self-report questionnaire of diabetes self-management.Results: Youngest subject was 32 years and eldest was 83 years (Mean 56.67 years SD 10.67 years). The mean weight and BMI of the subjects was 63.02 kg (SD 9.74 kg) and mean BMI 25.55 kg/m2 (SD 4.2 kg/m2). Among the co-morbidities, 43 (62.3%) of the patients were hypertensive, followed by 25 (36.2%) having heart problems. Most of the people (65.2%) rarely got their blood sugar level tested. 88.4 % people never had an ECG test. 29% diabetics did not engage in any form of exercise even once a day. Most of the subjects (58/69, 86.6%) were not given any advice by their health care staff on the mode and frequency of having their blood sugar checked.Conclusions:This study found that despite good adherence to medicine, the diabetics were lacking behind in following other lifestyle modifications like diet, exercise, foot care and regular checking of blood glucose.