Abstract
In curing diabetes mellitus, both the education and motivation provided by the medical staff is important for the patients achieving self-control.
We sent out a questionnaire (20 questions) regarding pharmacotherapy for diabetes mellitus to 164 NIDDM hospitalized patients in order to evaluate their level of knowledge of pharmacotherapy. The number of correct answers was 10.8±6.4 (mean±SD) when entering the hospital and 15.8±4.5 when leaving the hospital, which thus showed an improvement in the level of understanding.
The number of correct answers by patients their third or mare hospital stay was almost equal to that of the patients in either their first or second hospital stay. Some patients, however, entered the hospital without controling their blood sugar levels in spite of possessing sufficient knowledge about diabetes mellitus.
It is therefore important to properly educate and counsel patients in order to help them achieve a cure.
