Does Our Patients with Diabetes have Suffiscient Knowledge to Take Care of Their Feet?: A Prospective Study About 100 Tunisian Patients

Abstract

The present study investigated the knowledge of diabetic patients and seek the factors associated with good knowledge while providing podiatry advice.

This is a prospective cross-sectional descriptive study, involving 100 diabetic patients, followed up in the C Department of the National Nutrition Institute of Tunis (INNTA), recruited from 02 to 30 September 2019.

 We enroled 100 diabetic patients with diabetes (44 men, 56 women; age range 29-87 years). We evaluated  their knowledge on the diabetic foot, using a medical chart, as well as  their metabolic parameters.

We found that the mean age was 54±12.9 years, The sex ratio was 0.78. 56% had a high school or higher education level. 35% of the population was smokers. Diabetes was type 2 in the majority of cases (78%). The average duration of diabetes was 13.62±6.29 years. 78% of the population has been unbalanced. 34% of the population had good knowledge of preventive measures for diabetic foot. Having good knowledge of preventive measures was significantly associated with secondary or higher education (p=0.005), female gender (p=0.026) and glycemic control (p=0.043).

In concusion, the proportion of patients who were knowledgeable about diabetic foot prevention strategies was low and it didn't exceed one-third of the population. Then, Larger studies are necessary to determine the factors linked to inadequate podiatric knowledge and practises, as well as the factors that hinder adherence to advised preventive measures.