Abstract

Chinwendu Olivia Nwagbo, C.C.N. Vincent, Nkiru Okoroafor, Emmanuel Ifeanyi Obeagu*, Adanma Nwagwu Solomon, Anthonia Emesowum, Josephine Egbuchelem, Clementina Ezenwuba

ABSTRACT

This study examined the impact of structured training programme on the knowledge, attitudes and practice of lifestyle modification among diabetic patients attending clinics in Federal University Teaching Hospital, Owerri, Imo State. The sample for the study comprised 109 diabetic patients which were selected using the purposive sampling technique. The instrument used for data collection was a self-structured questionnaire sectioned in four parts to elicit information on knowledge, attitude and practice of diabetes lifestyle modification. The major findings among others are that the intervention group had higher KAP scores after exposure to the structured programme more than the respondents in the control group, implying that structured programme is effective in improving the knowledge, attitude and practice of diabetes lifestyle modification among diabetic patients; and demographic variables of marital status and length of diabetes diagnosis independently have no significant correlation with knowledge (p=.773 and.263), attitude (p=.869 and .288) and practice (p=.088 and .789) scores of the respondents respectively while variables of age, gender and level of education, independently, have significant relationships with knowledge (p=.000, .000 and .040), attitude (p=.000, .000 and .005) and practice (p=.000, .000 and .002) scores of the respondents respectively post-intervention. The researcher recommends among others that nurse in different hospitals should make it a point of duty to help raise awareness on lifestyle modifications for diabetic patients.