Abstract

Background: As an emerging epidemic of the 21st century, diabetes would threaten to overwhelm the health-care system,in the coming years posing a major challenges to patients and national economies. Currently, 415 million adults are found,to be diabetic which is likely to cross 642 million by 2040. Awareness and health-seeking behavior are important in the,reduction of burden of the disease and its long-term complications. Objectives: The objective of this study is to assess the,awareness of Type 2 diabetes mellitus among the general and diabetic population in the rural community of Mangalore.,
Materials and Methods: A Community-based cross-sectional study was conducted in rural population among subjects,aged 35 years and above. Based on the prevalence rate of 16.6% by Rao et al., 226 subjects were interviewed by systematic,random sampling method, and among them, 64 were found to be diabetic at the time of the survey.
Results: Of 226 persons,interviewed, 28.8% were aware of symptoms, 31.9% were aware of risk factors, and among them, majority were aware,of increased intake of sweets in association with diabetes, and 49.6% were aware of warning signs of hypoglycemia.,Only 22.6% were aware of complications of diabetes. Mean awareness score was 21.23 among diabetics than compared,with the general population, 17.07 (P < 0.05). Overall awareness of diabetes among the subjects was found to be <50%.,Conclusion: The study highlighted the low awareness status in this population for which there is a need for an effective,health education program in the community in prevention and long-term control of diabetes.