ASSESSMENT OF THE IMPACT OF PATIENT COUNSELING ON THE KNOWLEDGE, ATTITUDE AND PRACTICE IN PATIENTS WITH DIABETES MELLITUS IN A TERTIARY CARE HOSPITAL

INTRODUCTION: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a chronic condition associated with abnormally high levels of sugar (glucose) in the blood. The management of diabetes mellitus (DM) largely depends on patients’ ability to self-care in their daily lives, and therefore, patient education is always considered an essential element of DM management. Patient counselling involves providing drug information, dietary and lifestyle modifications. Thus patient counselling plays a major role in increasing patient’s medication adherence and improving the patient’s quality of life. The current study is to study the effect of counselling  on Knowledge, attitude and Practice among type 2 Diabetes mellitus. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A prospective observational study was carried out over a period of six months in General Medicine Department Of Muthoot Healthcare, Pvt. Ltd, Kozhencherry. The type 2 diabetic patients who were on oral hypoglycemic were enrolled in the study. A suitable data collection form was prepared and used to collect the required data. The demographic data, disease data and the utilization of various oral antidiabetic agents were analyzedand the knowledge of the patients was assessed by using a Knowledge,Attitude and Practice questionnaire. For this study 398 subjects were enrolled based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria. RESULTS: Among 398 subject, 89.5% shows elevated FBS before counselling and this is decreased to 53.5% after counseling, mean value of Pre-test (Before counselling) and Post-test(After counselling) was 35 and 16.4 respectively. In our study it was found that counseling was effective in maintaining glycemic control.