Treatment Compliance Among Patients with Diabetes Mellitus Attending Medical Outpatient Clinic in Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital

Diabetes mellitus is a group of metabolic that attacks the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas and more than 90% of them are permanently destroyed. Therefore, the study examined treatment compliance among patients with diabetes mellitus attending medical outpatient clinic in EKSUTH, Ado-Ekiti. The study specifically assessed the knowledge of diabetes patients, the level of adherence to diabetes mellitus medication and dietary compliance among diabetic patient attending medical outpatients’ clinic in EKSUTH. The study is a non-experimental research that utilized a descriptive design. This research was conducted among diabetic mellitus patient in the outpatient department of Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado - Ekiti. Convenient sampling technique was used to select 97 participants for the study. The instrument used for data collection was a questionnaire. The validity of the instrument was determined through face and content validity by experts of Nursing and Tests & Measurement. The stability of the instrument was determined using test re-test method which yielded reliability coefficient value 0.81. The research questions raised were answered using mean, frequency and standard deviation. The hypotheses generated were tested using t-test and chi-square statistical tool at 0.05 level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that most of the diabetic patients had moderate knowledge of diabetes, good adherence to medications and good dietary compliance. It was further concluded that gender and level of education of the diabetic patients did not influenced their treatment compliance. It was recommended among others that the Ministry of Health should strengthen national capacity to collect, analyse and use representative data on the burden and trends of diabetes and its key risk factors.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Treatment Compliance, Medical Outpatient Clinic,