Abstract:
ABSTRACT
Background: Diabetes Mellitus is one of the most common chronic diseases in the
world. Specially, the burden of the Diabetes Mellitus disease is highly increasing in
developing countries including Ethiopia. Diabetes information seeking is essential for
diabetic patients to better manage and control diabetes. However, information seeking
about disease prevention and treatment is low in developing countries.
Objective: This study aims to assess the diabetes information seeking behavior and its
associated factors among diabetic patients in Debremarkos referral hospital, Amhara
Region, Northwest Ethiopia.
Method: Institutional based cross sectional quantitative supplemented with qualitative
study design was conducted among 423 study subjects from March-April 2019.
Pretested structured questionnaire and in-depth interview guide was used to collect the
required data from study subjects. The data was entered using Epi-Info version 7.2.2.
Data processing and analysis were done using SPSS version 23. Descriptive statistics
and binary logistic regression model were used for quantitative study to assess diabetes
information seeking behavior and its determinant factors and also thematic content
analysis was used for qualitative study to explore the barriers for diabetes information
seeking among diabetic patients.
Result: Out of 423 study participants, only 41.6% of diabetic patients were diabetes
information seekers. Adjusting for all other factors in the final model, educational status
[AOR=0.02, 95%CI
Conclusion and Recommendation: This study result indicates that the overall
prevalence of information seeking among diabetic patients towards diabetes was low.
Therefore, awareness creations, competent infrastructure building, improving
information centers, improve health knowledge and literacy of diabetic patients is an
important activity to improve their diabetes information seeking.
