Awareness of eye complications and eye check practices among diabetics in a Nigerian Tertiary Hospital

Abstract

Background: Diabetes is a chronic metabolic disease that is fraught with disastrous effect on most organs in the body including the eye.

Objective: The study determined the level of awareness of eye complications and eye check practices among diabetic patients in a Tertiary Hospital in Nigeria.

Method: All consenting patients attending the Diabetic clinic of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado-Ekiti were recruited to the study by purposive sampling technique and interviewer administered semi-structured questionnaires were used to collect data. The data obtained were analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 17. The level of awareness and eye check practices were cross tabulated with gender and educational status.

Result: A total of 203 diabetic patients were interviewed and analyzed for the study, their ages ranged from 17years to 90years with a mean of 62.1 SD 12.1years, male: female ratio ≈ 1:2. One hundred and sixty-eight (82.8%) of them were aware that diabetes could cause eye complications while 35 (17.2%) were not, As regards eye check practices 156 (76.8%) were aware of the need for an eye check while 47 (23.2%) were not. There was a statistically significant difference between the level of awareness and the eye check practice when compared with their educational level.( p<0.05 ) while there was no statistically significant difference between these parameters and their gender ( p> 0.05).

Conclusion: The awareness level and eye check practices among diabetics in the study is quite high but nevertheless there is still need to sensitize the ignorant ones.

Keywords: Diabetes, Awareness, Eye check