Diabetes mellitus has emerged as a global health care problem with significant economic burden.  In order to prevent target organ damage and other complications that may arise from diabetes mellitus, good glycaemic control is imperative. Numerous factors have been found to influence glycaemic control among type 2 diabetic patients. Among these factors are social support and diabetic self-care practices. Studies have shown that increased support from family is positively related to patient’s self-care behaviour and is associated with good glycaemic control. Despite the fact that some studies have addressed the effect of family support on the self-care behaviours of diabetics; there is a dearth of local studies that explore the effect of both family support and self-care behaviour on glycaemic control among type 2 diabetic patients.

Objective

This study was aimed at identifying the relationship between perceived family support, self-care behaviours and glycaemic control among adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus seen at the Medical Outpatients Clinic of Federal Medical Centre (FMC), Abeokuta, Ogun State. 

Method 

A cross-sectional hospital-based study was carried out. Three hundred and thirteen (313) adult type 2 diabetic patients who attended the Medical Outpatients Clinic between August and November 2013 were selected by systematic random sampling method and studied. Data were collected through a pre-tested interviewer administered questionnaire and two standardized tools (Perceived Social Support Family Scale and Summary of Diabetic Self-Care Activities).

Results

A total of three hundred and thirteen (313) respondents were enrolled into the study. The majority of the respondents were middle aged (52.1%) and female (59.1%). The proportion of the participants with good glycaemic control was 40.6% while 27.2% and 32.2% of them had borderline and poor glycaemic control respectively. Of the three hundred and thirteen respondents, 43.8% (n=137) had strong family support, 40.9% (n=128) had weak family support while 15.3% (n=48) had no family support. The proportion of the participants that were rated as having ‘good’ self-care behaviour was 39.0%, while 35.8% and 25.2% of the participants were rated as having ‘fair’ and ‘poor’ self-care behaviour respectively. There was significant association between glycaemic control and gender (P<0.001), age (P=0.005), treatment modality (P<0.001), history of hypertension (P 0.005), waist circumference (P<0.001), perceived family support (P<0.001) and self-care-behaviour (P<0.001). Furthermore, being a female (P=0.002, OR=4.23), being on only oral hypoglycaemic agents (P=0.029, OR=4.83), absence of truncal obesity (P<0.001, OR=15.33), strong family support (P<0.001, OR=15.34) and good self-care behaviour (P<0.001, OR=5.86) were independent predictors of good glycaemia control.

Conclusion

The proportion of patients with good glycaemic control is low in this study. Good glycaemic control was associated with perceived family support, self-care behaviours, age, gender, treatment modality, no history of hypertension and absence of truncal obesity. The multiple independent predictors of good glycaemic control identified from this study call for a sustained multi-pronged approach in order to effectively tackle the problem of poor glycaemic control among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

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