European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

Background:
       Saudi Arabia is considered to be one of the highest countries in the Middle East for the incidence of diabetes mellitus. Data are lacking regarding knowledge about diabetes mellitus among school students in Saudi Arabia. Diabetes mellitus is a major metabolic disorder currently affecting over 350 million people worldwide. Also, another one billion people in the world are pre-diabetic, who may eventually end up with full- blown diabetes. Type 2 diabetes mellitus is fast becoming a global epidemic and the number of individuals with diabetes in the world is expected to reach 330 million by 2030. The rate of T2DM is rapidly increasing in developing countries, particularly among younger age groups a cross-sectional study indicated that Saudi adolescents exhibited more health-related knowledge than the older population; the majority of the adolescents believed that obesity was dangerous and that regular exercise was beneficial for their health. Saudi adolescents are at a high risk of developing diabetes as many suffer from obesity, a sedentary lifestyle and hereditary diabetes. In 2004, almost a quarter (23.7%) of the Saudi population was diagnosed with T2DM; this was 10 times the number of diabetic individuals in 1980.6 The occurrence of T2DM has been linked to the high rate of overweight adults (35.5%) in the Saudi population and the number of overweight and obese Saudi adolescents is high among both genders.
Aim of the study: The study aimed to assess the knowledge of diabetes mellitus among secondary school students at the Makkah in Saudi Arabia 2019.
Method: cross sectional descriptive study conducted among secondary school students at Makkah, during the April to June, 2019, the Sample size of diabetic secondary school students. Our total participants were (500).
Results:knowledge of the participant toward diabetes mellitus study results show the majority of participant had average information were(61.0%) while weak knowledge were (31.0%) the data ranged from (4-13) by mean ±SD (9.011±2.314).
Conclusion: The level of knowledge and awareness of a considerable number of high school students regarding DM was inadequate, and some of them possessed various misconceptions about this particular chronic disease. Health authorities and school authorities in the region should offer special efforts to improve the level of knowledge and awareness of the students through regular health education campaigns.Diabetes Day should be celebrated in all schools and workshops and lectures given by professionals in collaboration with Ministry of Health on this day are recommended to increase the level of awareness of diabetes