ABSTRACT

Diabetes Mellitus is a multifactorial metabolic  disorder, characterized by chronic hyperglycemia. Diabetes as a complex metabolic disorder involves multiple organ systems. Diabetes is the leading cause of blindness between the ages 20-74 in the developed countries, with diabetic retino pathy being the most well-known  ocular complication. Individuals with diabetes are 25 times more likely to become legally blind than the individualswithout diabetes. The purpose of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practiceof diabetic patient in Benin city about ocular complications of diabetes mellitus. A total of 100 subjects aged 11 years and above with diabetes visiting the Diabetic centre of the Central Hospital and the Endocrinology Department of the Faith Mediplex Hospital, Benin citywas recruited for the study. A structured questionnaire was administered by an interviewer after an informed consent has been duly obtained. Data was collected which contained information on demographics, knowledge on diabetes and it socular complication, attitude and practices of patients towards eye care. The subjects’ responses were used to calculate theirknowledge, attitude and practice to screening based on a score ratio. The results showed that only67.0% of the diabetic patients had good knowledge of the ocular complications. Chi-squareanalysis showed that there was no Association between knowledge and age, gender, education level but there was an association between knowledge and Occupation, younger subjects had  better knowledge, 33% of the patients had good practices regarding ocular complications. There was no association between knowledge and practices .This implies that people should seek eye care and barriers to seeking eye care should be identified, hence there is a need for proper sensitization of the public on their practices regarding ocular complications.

Keywords: Diabetes Mellitus, Diabetic Retinopathy, Knowledge, OcularComplications.