Assessment of glycaemic control and associated factors among types 2 diabetes mellitus patients attending outpatients department clinic of Kubwa general hospital, Abuja

Abstract

Background: Glycaemic management is crucial to the effective treatment of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) because it reduces or eliminates Complications caused by diabetes. Aims and Objectives: To evaluate glycaemic control and the factors that contributed to it. Materials and Methods: The study employed a cross-sectional hospital-based descriptive research design, and 190 patients with type 2 DM were selected through a systematic sampling process. Data were gathered using a self-administered questionnaire and validated in accordance with the study’s specific objectives. The acquired data were coded, put into SPSS (version 21.0 Inc., Chicago IL, USA), and subjected to Chi-square testing and descriptive analysis with a 0.05 level of significance. Results: More than half of the respondents, 64.2%, had substantial risk factors for poor glycaemic control, and the majority of respondents, 60.0%, had poor glycaemic control. The contributing factors to poor glycaemic control were patients who had been coming to the clinic for more than 10 years, poor medication adherence, forgetting to take their prescription and stopping their medication when their symptoms were under control. The study also found a significant (P = 0.05) correlation between haemoglobin A1c level, age and household income. Conclusion: Amazingly, 60.5% of patients with type 2 diabetes had inadequate glycaemic control. Age and low monthly household income compared with the cost of medications were found to have a major impact on glycaemic control. Therefore, we recommend that the government of Nigeria needs to subsidise the cost of DM medication and establish a policy and environment that will promote a better blood glucose control among people with diabetes.