A STUDY TO EVALUATE SELF-FOOT CARE BEHAVIOUR IN INDIAN PATIENTS WITH TYPE 2 DIABETES MELLITUS

BACKGROUND:The benefits of self-foot care management are well recognized in type 2 diabetes subjects. However, a substantial proportion of patients don't perform self-foot care assessment at all. We aimed to enumerate the barriers to self-foot care management in Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) patients and factors associated with these barriers. METHODOLOGY: A cross-sectional study of successive 600 type 2 diabetes patients attending routine out-patient diabetes clinics in tertiary care hospitals in Kolkata, India from 1st June 2018 to 31st March 2019.Besides demographic details, patient particulars, laboratory investigations, the questionnaire included 2 direct questions on possible barriers to self-foot care management. The questions were grouped into five categories viz. environmental (4 questions), behavioral (9 questions), occupational (2 questions), physical inability (7 questions) and medical reason (1 question). RESULTS:An overwhelming 60% of the study population have more than one barrier to self-foot management. Alarger proportion of females (69.9%) were not taking self-foot care management compared to their male counterparts (55.5%). Around one-third of the male participants cited lack of time as a major barrier to self-foot care management. Around 40% females reported lack of foot care education and training as the major obstacle to self-foot care management. CONCLUSION: This study elaborates the need for awareness regarding possible barriers when counseling T2DM patients. Behavioral causes seem to be the commonest barrier to self-foot care management and hence strategies to target the same needs to be thought of.