Berhane Fseha
Introduction: Diabetic complication can be reduced by maintaining good glycemic control. The main goal in diabetic management is achieving good glycemic control because it reduces hospital admission due to diabetic related complication. However, majority of them did not achieve and needs contextual factor identification because the reasons for poor glycemic control in Type 2 diabetes are complex. The objective of this study was to assess the magnitude of poor glycemic control and its associated factors among type 2 diabetic patients at Suhul Hospital, Northwest Tigray, Ethiopia.
Methods: Hospital based cross sectional study was conduct on systematically sampled 200 type 2 diabetic patients with regular follow up. Data was collect by interviewing patients during hospital visits and measuring fasting blood glucose at the time of interview at the same time by reviewing the last two month fasting blood glucose results from their chart. Data collection took place from march to april 2014. Good glycemic control was defined as the three month average fasting blood sugar (FBS)<126 mg/dl. Binary logistic regression analysis was conduct to identify predictor of glycemic control.
Result: Patients had the mean age of 42.2 ± SD 6.6 years, 68.5% were males, 71.5% were living in urban, 57% had diploma and above educational status, 36.5% achieve good glycemic control, FBS<126 mg/dl, 66% of the patients had <7 year duration of diabetes. On multivariate logistic regression analysis, moderate physical exercise (AOR=2.927, 95% CI=1.335-6.420) taking meal prescribed by their physician appropriately (AOR=2.568, 95% CI=1.222-5.398) and medication adherence (AOR=4.156, 95% CI=1.835-9.409) were factors associated with good glycemic control.
Conclusion: This study reveals that the proportion of diabetic patients achieving good glycemic control was low. Moderate physical exercise, taking meal prescribed by their physician appropriately and medication adherence were factors associated with good glycemic control.