Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Hypoglycemia is a common but preventable complication of type 2 diabetes. Knowledge of its causes and what patients should do is essential. The main objective of our study was to describe the level of patients’ knowledge about hypoglycemia. The secondary objective was to study the factors influencing this knowledge.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional observational study over a period of 3 months including patients followed for type 2 diabetes at the the Internal Medicine department of El Razi Hospital. The evaluation was carried out by a questionnaire in dialect Arabic relating to the value of hypoglycemia, its physical signs, the situations that favor it, its correction and actions to avoid it. A sufficient level of knowledge was determined by a score greater than or equal to 60%.

Results: The average age of our population was 65 years with female predominance. The rate of professional inactivity and illiteracy were high at 51.1% and 31% respectively. Only 31.6% had benefited from therapeutic education. A third of our population had an insufficient level of knowledge. Sixty-six percent of the population did not know the threshold for hypoglycemia and 38% defined it as a value less than 1g/l. Ninety-five percent of patients could correctly name 2 clinical signs of hypoglycemia. A third of patients thought that lack of insulin can be responsible for hypoglycemia. Only 74 patients corrected hypoglycemia by combining a fast sugar with a slow sugar. Ninety-eight percent of the population on insulin therapy did not master the adaptation of insulin doses according to needs. The factors that most influenced knowledge were professional activity (P = 0.001), secondary or higher education level (P = 0.00) and therapeutic education (P = 0.047).

Conclusion: Our study revealed a lack of patient knowledge of hypoglycemia. Repeated therapeutic education adapted to patients is desirable in order to reinforce their knowledge.