A Study to Assess the Effect of Awareness Programme on Compliance to Insulin Therapy among Patients with Diabetes Mellitus (DM) in a Selected Community Health Centre, Thrissur District

Diabetes mellitus (DM) rises globally with the greatest increase in Asia, especially in India. Diabetic patients develop complications due to unawareness of the disease, treatment and non-compliance to treatment regimen. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to determine the effect of awareness programme on compliance to insulin therapy among patients with diabetes mellitus (DM) in a selected community health centre, Thrissur district. The objectives of the study were to assess the knowledge and compliance to insulin therapy among patients with diabetes mellitus, to evaluate the effect of awareness programme on insulin therapy among patients with diabetes mellitus and to correlate the pre-test knowledge score and pre-test compliance score on insulin therapy. Quasi-experimental one group pre-test post-test design was adopted. Using non-probability consecutive sampling technique 60 diabetes patients were selected. The findings revealed that 36.7% and 35% had poor knowledge and compliance respectively. Where as in post-test, no one had poor knowledge and compliance to insulin therapy. The obtained't' value for knowledge (t₅₉=19.990>t=2.00) and compliance (t₅₉=14.611>t=2.00) were significant at 0.05 level, indicating that awareness programme was effective in terms of gain in knowledge and compliance on insulin therapy. The present study showed that there was positive high correlation (0.838) between knowledge and compliance on insulin therapy. Findings revealed that there was no significant association between pre-test knowledge score and pre-test compliance score with all baseline variables (Age, sex, educational status, occupational status, type of medication, family history of diabetes, duration of diabetes and duration of insulin therapy) at 0.05 level.