Epidemiologic profile and level of knowledge among diabetic patients about diabetes and diabetic retinopathy

Purpose: To assess the epidemiologic profile and level of knowledge of diabetic patients about diabetes and diabetic retinopathy (DR). Methods: Cross-sectional study with patients seen at Retina and Vitreous sector of Hospital do Servidor Publico Estadual de Sao Paulo. The subjetcs were assigned into two groups: diabetic patients sent for first ophthalmologic evaluation (G1) and patient already followed in the sector (G2). The patients answered a questionnaire and were submitted to ophthalmologic examination. It had been used chi-square (x(2)), exact of Fisher and non-parametric of Mann-Whitney tests, with level of significance of 5%. Results: The total sample was composed for 357 patients (109 in G1 and 248 in G2). The majority of the patients were female, married, with incomplete basic education, age average of 63.3 years and affirmed to know what it is diabetes. However, 53.2% did not know their type of diabetes. The visual complications of diabetes are most known. Less of one third of the patients had heard of DR and 77.3% did not know if they had it. The majority of the patients had never received any explanation or lecture about diabetes or DR. Only 3.6% of the patients had participated of programs of education on diabetes. The visual acuity, in logMAR scale, was of 0.57 in OD and 0.51 in the OS. Half of the patients did not have DR. Conclusion: The majority of the patients have low knowledge about diabetes and its complications.