Awareness and practices on preventing Chronic Kidney Disease among Diabetes mellitus patients attending medical clinic at Teaching Hospital, Batticaloa

Abstract

Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) has become a global burden and affects more than 10% of the population. There are many triggering factors which cause progressive and irreversible damage to the kidneys. Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a leading cause of CKD. In Sri Lanka the number of kidney patients rapidly increase in last three decades and still CKD is an unsolved problem and it seems that the disease severely affecting the patient’s lives due to the lack of proper treatment facilities.The purpose of this study was to assess awareness and practices on preventing chronic kidney disease among diabetes mellitus patients attending medical clinic at Teaching Hospital, Batticaloa. A descriptive study was carried out to assess the awareness and practices on preventing chronic kidney disease among 290 diabetes mellitus patients attending medical clinic at Teaching Hospital, Batticaloa. Systematic sampling method was employed to recruit participants. After obtaining informed consent, data were collected through a pilot-tested, validated and interviewer administered questionnaire. Statistical Package of Social Sciences 26 was used for analyzing the data using descriptive statistics. The descriptive analysis was employed in calculation if frequency and percentage. About 60.7% of the participants had heard about CKD. However, in the same population majority of the respondents (52.1%) had not aware that DM can cause CKD. Over half 151 (52.1%) of the study participants did not know that controlling blood sugar level can prevent CKD. The proportion of the individuals who assume that CKD can be caused by usage of some medications was about 58.6%. The most identified risk factors were alcohol consumption (53.4%) and smoking (50.7%). Thus, majority of the participant had poor awareness that high blood pressure (56.9%), heart disease (71%) and obesity (85.5%) have an association with CKD. A higher percentage of the participants (88.6%) attend for the regular clinical follow up and 56.9% individuals check their blood sugar level from the private setup when they unable to attend the clinics. Majority of them (68.6%) had appropriate BMI and 81.7% were had good diet pattern. But they had poor practice on doing exercise (60.7%) and doing annual urine tests (52.8%). Over all the results have demonstrated the study population 54.5% has generally low level of awareness and 69.6% of the study participants following good practices towards preventing CKD. On the basis of the findings, it reveals that more than half of the respondents have inadequate awareness on preventing CKD. However, good practices towards preventing CKD were found in an optimal level but some of the areas should be addressed.