Factors that Influence Controlling of Fasting Blood Sugar Level in Diabetic Patients at Bang Kruai Community Hospital-ปัจจัยที่สัมพันธ์กับการควบคุมระดับน้ำตาลในเลือดของผู้ป่วยโรคเบาหวานที่รับบริการในโรงพยาบาลบางกรวย

Abstract

             This survey research was aimed at collecting all important data of diabetic patients including basic information, health status, knowledge, life-style and attitude toward their illness (Diabetes Milletus or DM) and analyzing their association with higher rate of achieving targeted fasting blood sugar level.  This narrative study collected data from 212 diabetic patients who received OPD health services from Bang Kruai Community Hospital from 1 February 2008 to 31 March 2008.  Methodology of this research involved interviewing the group of patients mentioned previously with 2 sets of questionnaires.  The first set was on the patients for their general data, health status, BMI (Body mass index), fasting blood sugar level, complications and mental stress.  The second one was on their knowledge about DM, attitude toward this disease and their life-style. 

              The result of this research shows that most of diabetic patients were female (73.1%), aged between 61 and 70 years (35.4%) with a mean age of 61 years, highest formal education at primary school level and low income (35.8%).  Many (35.8%) were housekeeper had care -givers (54.3%) and have been diagnosed with DM type II for 1 -5 years (62.3%) with an average of 6 year.  More than half of these patients had other chronic illnesses (77.4%) and also complications (68.9%).  Hypertension was the most common co -existing chronic illness.  The majority of this group of patients were not overweight with BMI less than 22.9 kg /m2 (75.9% ), without much daily mental stress (92.9%) and were to achieve their fasting blood sugar goal (75.5%).  The survey showed that most of these patients had fair knowledge about DM (74.6%), whereas only one-fourth of them had poor and excellent knowledge (24.5% and 0.9% respectively).  None of these diabetic patients had poor attitude toward their illness.  The majority revealed good attitude (69.8%).  Their life-styles were interestingly at least fair for achieving their targeted blood sugar level (67.9% of fair, 29.3% of excellent and negligible small proportion of 2.8% of poor life-style).  With regards to basic information of the patients, sex and age were not correlated with achieving goal of blood sugar level but education level, occupation, incomes and having care givers were statistically significantly associated with achieving blood sugar level goal (p-value < 0.05).  Regarding their health status, lengths of time after diagnosis, other co-existing chronic illness, having complications and stress, these factors did not correlate with achieving targeted blood sugar level, unlike BMI which did.  As between the well-controlled and badly-controlled diabetic groups were compared, they both had similar lifestyles and knowledge level about DM.  However, the well-controlled group showed a statistically significant difference in attitude towards their illness as more of them exhi-bited a good attitude.

Key words:      fasting blood sugar level, diabetic patients, community hospital