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Background: Diabetes is a chronic disease and has been found to be the fourth or fifth
leading cause of death in most developed, developing and newly industrialized countries.
The growing middle class and ever changing lifestyle in developing countries have led to
the rapid increase in the burden of diabetes (Type 2) even among the poor. The
epidemiological trend has caught up with Ghana. Medical research has found that dietary
treatment is the best control for type 2 diabetes. However, little is known about patients’
adherence to treatment protocol and the management of the disease in Ghana.
Aims: This research therefore sought to identify and evaluate the nutritional management
procedures for diabetics in the Agona Swedru municipal and to assess the adherence to
treatment protocol by diabetic patients as well as the effect of adherence on their nutritional
status.
Methods: There was an enquiry about the nutritional protocol for diabetics at the hospital
and this was compared to the GHS protocol for evaluation. A total of 90 diabetics who
were 40 years and older attending review at the Agona Swedru hospital were enrolled in
the study. Questionnaire was used to collect data under the following sections; sociodemographic
characteristics, nutritional knowledge, lifestyle practices, dietary habits and
measurement. The data collected under the measurement section, represented the
nutritional status of the diabetics. To describe the socio-demographic characteristics,
descriptive analysis was employed, while all of the other various sections of the
questionnaire were scored. Correlations were used to find out if the scores from nutritional
knowledge, dietary and lifestyle practices had associations with the nutritional status score.
Adherence was measured by looking at patients’ scores on both their lifestyle and dietary
habits. Person’s correlation was used to find out if adherence had an association with
nutritional status.
Results: The nutritional management procedures for the diabetics at Agona Swedru
protocol was identified and found to be in need of updating as there were lapses when
compared to the GHS protocol. More than half of the patients had a poor nutritional
knowledge of diabetes though this did not have any association on nutritional status. More
than half (82%) of total patients reported to be adhering to protocol; however more than
half (71%) of total patients had poor nutritional status. Reported adherence for treatment
did not improve the nutritional status of most of the diabetics in this study. Poor nutritional
and health status was found to be high among more than half of sedentary group of
patients.
Conclusion: Generally, though most patients reported to be adhering to standard protocol,
their nutritional statuses remained poor with inadequate physical activity level. It is
therefore important that the Agona protocol is updated taking into consideration, the
association between energy intake and energy expenditure in order to cause some weight
loss (10%) during adherence for especially overweight and obese diabetics. |
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