Tshibeya Mbuyi Roland, Torlutter Michele
Department of Family Medicine, Faculty of Health Science, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
J Coll Med S Afr. 2024 Mar 29;2(1):52. doi: 10.4102/jcmsa.v2i1.52. eCollection 2024.
Healthcare workers require better understanding of the current knowledge and behaviours of the local community towards diabetes mellitus (DM) and its prevention before appropriate interventions can be developed to address the gaps. There is currently a paucity of scientific papers on knowledge, attitudes and health choices among the non-diabetic population in a facility setting in South Africa.
In this cross-sectional study, a self-reported questionnaire was administered to 165 adult participants attending the Chiawelo Community Practice from 02 March 2020 to 17 April 2020. The study utilised descriptive statistics, Chi-square testing, univariate logistic regression, and multivariate analysis for variable assessment.
Almost half of the participants (49%) had good knowledge of DM, with 60% indicating good attitudes and 52% making good health choices to prevent DM. Participants having received education from clinicians were 5.61 times more likely to develop better attitudes and 3.92 times more likely to adopt better health choices towards DM compared to those who obtained information from media or other sources.
The study found that poor knowledge of DM does not necessarily translate into poor attitude towards the disease, which is noteworthy. The study also highlighted the important role of healthcare workers in influencing behaviour change.
Information from this study can be used to strengthen health services through several clinical governance activities including quality improvement, capacity building, health education and community-oriented promotion, and prevention strategies.
在制定适当干预措施以弥补差距之前，医护人员需要更好地了解当地社区对糖尿病（DM）及其预防的现有知识和行为。目前，关于南非医疗机构中非糖尿病患者的知识、态度和健康选择的科学论文很少。
在这项横断面研究中，于2020年3月2日至2020年4月17日对165名参加奇阿韦洛社区诊所的成年参与者进行了自我报告问卷调查。该研究采用描述性统计、卡方检验、单因素逻辑回归和多变量分析进行变量评估。
近一半的参与者（49%）对糖尿病有良好的了解，60%表示态度良好，52%做出了预防糖尿病的良好健康选择。与从媒体或其他来源获取信息的参与者相比，接受临床医生教育的参与者对糖尿病形成更好态度的可能性高5.61倍，采取更好健康选择的可能性高3.92倍。
该研究发现，对糖尿病的了解不足不一定转化为对该疾病的不良态度，这一点值得注意。该研究还强调了医护人员在影响行为改变方面的重要作用。
本研究的信息可用于通过多种临床治理活动加强卫生服务，包括质量改进、能力建设、健康教育和社区导向的推广以及预防策略。
