Association between self-care management practices and glycemic control of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Saud Arabia: A cross –sectional study

OBJECTIVE: In this cross-sectional study, we aimed to determine the association of self-care management practices and glycemic control of type 2 diabetes mellitus in Saudi Arabia. METHODS: A total of 352 type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients from two public tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia participated in this study. All T2DM patients were recruited and interviewed by a researcher between January to April 2018 from the outpatient diabetes clinics. All respondents answered a four-part questionnaire which includes demographics data, Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire (DSMQ). Linear Regression was performed to assess the significance of predictors and compute the coefficient of determination. RESULTS: The mean age of the participants was 51.89 ± 10.94. Of the 352 participants, 52% were obese (BMI: ≥30 kgm(2)) and 77% of the participants had glycated haemoglobin (HbA1c) over 7%. The analysis showed that subscale of Glucose management was the strongest predictor of Hba1c levels of participants’ followed by physical activity. Gender and marital status emerged as significant predictors for their self-care management practices. Female patients had more self-care management practices than male patients (B 0.20; 95CI 0.10– 0.96 (p = 0.015). CONCLUSION: This study provides an evidence on the self-care management of T2DM patients in Saudi Arabia. The high self-care management found in the study highlights that the patients are aware of the severity of and possible complications associated with T2DM.