article · Pan African Medical Journal
Dietary management serves as a fundamental component of diabetes care, capable of reducing glycosylated haemoglobin levels by one to two percent. An evaluation of 303 diabetic patients assessed adherence to dietary guidelines and identified key contributing factors. Over half of the participants, specifically 55.7 percent, did not adhere to dietary recommendations. Dining out and social gatherings with family and friends were identified as the primary reasons for non-compliance. Attending diabetic nutrition education significantly increased the likelihood of adherence, as did living with the disease for more than ten years. Given that non-adherence affects the majority of patients in this group, structured strategies are needed to improve patient comprehension and support long-term adherence to prescribed dietary plans.
Effective dietary management is essential for regulating blood sugar levels and preventing complications in diabetic patients. Understanding the barriers to dietary adherence, such as social pressures during meals, shows healthcare providers where support is needed. The evidence confirms that targeted patient education can substantially improve compliance, offering a direct route to better public health outcomes.
This early-stage research provides behavioural insights that could inform the design of diabetic education programmes, clinical diet counselling services, or patient-facing digital health tools targeting social eating habits. However, the abstract does not indicate a specific product or application pathway ready for commercial deployment.
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INTRODUCTION: Dietary management is considered to be one of the cornerstones of diabetes care. Improvement of dietary practice alone can reduce glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) by an absolute 1 to 2% with the greatest impact at the initial stages of diabetes. METHODS: Data from Hospital based cross sectional study were used to assess the level of dietary adherence and its determinants among diabetic patients. The morisky 8 item medication adherence scale was used to develop 10 item tool for evaluation of dietary adherence. Multiple logistic regression was conducted to identify factors which affect dietary adherence and variables with P vale < 0.05 were considered statistically significant. RESULTS: More than half of 303 participants (55.7%) were found to be non-adherent to the recommended dietary approach. Gathering with family and friends and eating out were the major reasons for not being compliant with the recommended regimen. Attending diabetic nutrition education (AOR=2.8 95% C 1.97, 5.61) and having the disease for more than 10 years (AOR 2.9 95% CI 1.32, 5.84) were statistically significant with adherence to dietary recommendation. CONCLUSION: Non-adherence to recommended dietary practice was observed in more than fifty percent of patients; it is therefore a major public health problem. Attending diabetic nutrition education and length of diabetes greater than 10 years were the factors associated with adherence to dietary recommendation. This findings indicate that it is important to design strategies to help patients understand their dietary regimens and improve their adherence.
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DOI: 10.11604/pamj.2019.33.260.14463
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