Correspondence

Optimal glycemic, lipid and blood pressure (BP) control has been shown to decrease the microvascular and macrovascular complications of diabetes (1-10). However, the status of control of these cardiovascular risk factors in individuals with diabetes is far from optimal (11,12). Lack of patients’ knowledge of the targets of diabetes care might be one of the reasons for the low level of control of risk factors. Some studies showed only 23-25 % of individuals with diabetes know what is target hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c < 7%) and about the same percent of patients know how to interpret HbA1c value in relation to their own glycemic control (13,14). Improving patients ’ knowledge might help in attaining the goals of diabetes management, but the supporting studies are limited (14-18). We investigated whether the gain in the knowledge of the targets of diabetes care after receiving diabetes self management education (DSME) predicts the achievement of target HbA1c (<7%) at 6 months