Improvement of Diabetic Patients’ Knowledge Regarding Foot Problems:An Intervention Study

Background: Many diabetic patients are affected by diabetic foot, a devastating and potentially fatal condition mostly due to lack of knowledge of foot care.

Aim of the Study: To evaluate the effectiveness of nursing intervention program on patient’s knowledge about diabetes and foot care. Subjects and Method: This quasi-experimental study was carried out at the Diabetes and outpatient clinics of Beni-Suef University hospitals on a convenience sample of 158 adult diabetic patients. An interview questionnaire was used to collect data on patient’s socio-demographic and diabetes characteristics and patient’s health habits, in addition to, knowledge questionnaire and diabetic foot screening format which used to assess foot condition.

Results: The sample had an equal gender distribution, and mostly had intermediate education (41.1%), with 52.5% having their diabetes for less than five years, 77.2% had one or more abnormal physical finding in foot assessment. Overall, 32.9% had satisfactory knowledge before the intervention, and this significantly increased to 90.5% after the intervention (p<0.001). In multivariate analysis, the study intervention was the main positive predictor of the knowledge score change.

Conclusion and Recommendations: A patient’s education program is effective in improving patients’ knowledge about diabetes and diabetic foot. It should be widely used in educating diabetic patients. A longer term study is proposed to investigate the impact of knowledge improvement on prevention of diabetic foot.