Background: Diabetes mellitus (DM) is defined as a metabolic disease characterized by increasing glucose levels. Different factors can affect glycemic control in people with DM during the coronavirus disease (COVID- 19) pandemic. For that reason, our study aims to investigate diabetic patients in Alahsa whether they adhere to their medications or not during the COVID-19 pandemic and to know the factors responsible for their nonadherence.
Methods: A cross-sectional study was done using an online google survey targeting diabetic and pre-diabetic patients in Alahsa. The sample size was 298. All diabetic and pre-diabetic patients above 18 years of age from both genders visiting primary health care canters in Al Ahasa from August 2020 to April 2021 were included. Patients with DM less than 18 years of age or those managed with lifestyle only were excluded. After data were collected, it was modified, coded, and entered into the Statistical Package for Social Science version 22.0.
Results: A total of 298 diabetic and pre-diabetic patients completed the study questionnaire. An exact of 250 (83.9%) patients were compliant to treatment according to physician prescription. As for causes of non-compliance, 47.9% of patients attributed to forgetting, followed by lack of trust in physician (29.2%), fear of side effects (22.9%), having too many drugs (16.7%), and depression with psychological distress (8.3%) with high drug cost (8.3%).
Conclusion: We concluded that most of the participants had good adherence to their medications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Because forgetting, not trusting the doctors, and fear of side effects were the most common causes affecting compliance, we recommend physicians increase the awareness of diabetic and pre-diabetic patients about the importance of medication adherence.
Key words: Type 1 diabetes mellitus, type 2 diabetes mellitus, endocrine, adherence, covid-19, diabetes
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