Abstract:
Background: Globally, prevalence of diabetes related complications has been on
the rise and linked to poor skills and knowledge on the recommended self-care
practices.
Objective: To establish activation levels among adult patients newly diagnosed
with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM).
Method: Descriptive cross-sectional design was utilized to collect data from 124
randomly selected patients who were newly diagnosed with T2DM in the selected
health care facilities. Data was collected using a closed ended questionnaire and
the Patient Activation Measure® then analyzed using SPSS version 26. Descriptive
analysis was done to generate frequencies while chi-square was done to assess
association between the independent and dependent variables using a confidence
interval of 95%.
Results: Females were the majority 70 (56.5%) with most participants 35 (28.3%)
being between 60-69 years. Regarding duration of T2DM since diagnosis majority
45 (36.3%) reported four months. Only 45 (36.3%) had normal Body Mass Index
(BMI) while 42 (33.9%) were obese. Low patient activation levels were noted in 88
(71.0%) of the study participants. The mean (SD) for the patient activation levels
was 53.28 (±7.27) corresponding to activation level 2. Variables found to have a
statistically significant association were religion (p=0.024) and clinical duration of
T2DM (P=0.031).
Conclusion: Activation levels were found to be low indicating low levels of
confidence, knowledge and skills among adult patients newly diagnosed with
T2DM. Therefore, clinicians need to adopt evidence-based strategies aimed at
empowering newly diagnosed patients so as to activate them in adjusting their self
care practices.
