Diabetes Mellitus, Lifestyle and Nutrition in Urban Women: Need for Baseline Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Guided Programs

Introduction: Fundamental to the success of preventive measures in diabetes mellitus, is disease-related knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP). We aimed to assess KAP regarding type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), nutrition and lifestyle in a community-based population of newly diagnosed dysglycemic and normoglycemic women, unaware of their glycemic status at the time of data collection. Methods: Women (2800) aged 30-45 years were screened for dysglycemia using cluster sampling from the Colombo Municipal Council area. All 272 dysglycemic detected through screening and 345 normoglycemic randomly selected from the same screened sample were enrolled. All women were unaware of their glycemic status. The sampling strategy aimed to include adequate numbers of women with altered glycemic status who were unaware of their status at the time of the study. A validated and pretested intervieweradministered questionnaire was used and analyzed using Chi-square test and student’s t-test. Results: KAP on T2DM, nutrition and a healthy lifestyle were poor, particularly knowledge on prediabetes. Some aspects of lifestyle modification were known. Women with a family history compared to those without, had better knowledge (p<0.001) and attitudes (p<0.05), but lower practice scores (p<0.05). Majority of women who found it difficult to resist foods high in fat and sugar, ate while watching television, and a higher proportion of them had a family history (p<0.001). Conclusion: Poor food-related practices observed among those with a family history, despite better knowledge and attitudes indicate a need for targeted intervention. The specific KAP related aspects identified here, can direct future intervention strategies.