Background: Saudi Arabia is ranked the second highest, in the Middle East, for the prevalence of diabetes. People carry out blood glucose self-monitoring with diabetes to measure their blood sugar using a glycemic reader. Still, the accuracy could be affected by few factors, such as unwashed hands. The present study aimed at assessing the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pseudo-hyperglycemia effects of unwashed hands among type 2 diabetes patients in Saudi Arabia.
Methodology: This cross-sectional study assessed the knowledge, attitude, and practice of pseudo-hyperglycemia effects of unwashed hands among 394 participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus aged 40 and older in King Salman bin Abdulaziz Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The data were analyzed by Statistical Package for the Social Sciences software, 2017. Chi-squared test was used to attain a p-value between categorical data, both dependent and independent, to estimate the association where p-value ≤ 0.05 was considered significant.
Results: Among the studied subjects, 58.4% (n = 230) of the participants had knowledge about the pseudo-hyperglycemia effect of unwashed hands, 68.8% (n = 271) always washed their hands. Regarding attitude, 71.1% (n = 280) agreed that there was a relationship between unwashed hands and wrong reading. The only significant factor that could increase the risk of pseudo-hyperglycemia effect of unwashed hands was gender (p = 0.037). And the characteristics that could be associated with adequate knowledge are age (p = 0.049), gender (p = 0.011), and nationality (p = 0.016).
Conclusion: The study deduces the importance of washing hands before using a blood glucose meter to prevent pseudo-hyperglycemia, despite using alcohol swabs. Therefore, we recommend all people with type 2 diabetes to wash hands before using a glucose meter.
Key words: Diabetes, glucose meter, hand washing, pseudo-hyperglycemia, self-monitoring of blood glucose.
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