Background: Diabetes mellitus is a high-risk mortality factor, especially type 1 diabetes, wherein patients are dependent on insulin. It affects students at a young age who spend most of their days at school. This requires basic knowledge and positive attitudes from school teachers toward diabetes. Thereby, this study aimed to evaluate the knowledge, attitude, and practice of care that teachers and staff members have toward students with diabetes.
Methodology: A cross-sectional survey was conducted among a total of 200 teachers and staff members of the four largest university schools in Riyadh between May and July, 2020, through a questionnaire. Collected data included socio-demographic information about gender, age, and educational level of the teachers, in addition to teachers' knowledge regarding type 1 diabetes mellitus in schools.
Results: The current results showed that 54% teachers had family members with diabetes and 66.5% of them had students with diabetes in class. Around 73% of the participants responded that diabetes increases blood sugar levels. Almost 68.5% and 57% strongly agreed that diabetes leads to frequent urination and excessive thirst, respectively. Furthermore, 32% strongly agreed that type 1 diabetes is treated with insulin injections.
Around half of study sample (48%) was trained to deal with diabetes emergencies at their schools.
Conclusion: No independent factors were found to be significantly effective with teachers knowledge of diabetes while age, sex, and educational level of teachers were the independent factors affecting teachers attitudes.
Key words: Type 1 diabetes mellitus, knowledge, attitude, practice, school teachers
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