Knowledge and adherence to self-care practices among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus: A review of influencing factors and interventions

Introduction: Self-care practices such as regular exercise, diet modifications, correct intake of prescribed medications, and routine blood glucose monitoring are essential to the success of the T2DM care plan and achieving the desired outcomes. Consequently, knowledge of and adherence to the recommended self-care practices among patients with T2DM are associated with an increased likelihood of achieving clinical outcomes. Objectives: To describe and summarize the current evidence concerning the extent of knowledge and adherence to self-care practices among T2DM patients and the associated factors. Also, to highlight the interventions seems capable of enhancing knowledge and adherence to T2DM self-care practices. Methods: The step-wise scoping review methodology by Arksey and O’Malley was followed. We have retrieved the included studies by referring to three scientific databases, Google Scholar, Science Direct, and PubMed. We followed a multistage screening process that considers relevancy, publication year (2011-2019), English language, and article types (original research articles). We formulated research questions focused on the extent of knowledge and adherence levels related to T2DM, particularly self-care practices and its appropriate interventions. Results: Sixteen articles have been included, and the majority (n=15) was following the quantitative approach. Only one study was adopting an experimental design. Overall, most of the findings highlighted the knowledge deficits and suboptimal adherence to T2DM self-care practices. The correlation between the knowledge level, adherence to self-care practices, and attainment of glycemic control were underpinned across the included studies. There was a lack of sufficient studies that designed and tested a targeted intervention to enhance patients’ knowledge and adherence to T2DM self-care practices. Conclusion: This work suggests that further targeted Interventions to promote T2DM self-care practices are still needed. Also, future work has to promote the practice of individualized T2DM self-care that considers the variety of modulating factors in every case