Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease, patients with T2DM must be knowledgeable on how coordinate life style modification in to a daily routine of work to achieve and maintain normal physiological blood glucose level. Physical exercise is one of important practice in controlling blood glucose and other complication related to diabetes. The objective of this study was to assess knowledge, attitude and practices of physical exercise amongst Type 2 diabetes patients.
Material and Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited 380 patients with T2DM (male = 137, female = 243) from diabetic clinic Bugando Medical Centre, Tanzania using convenient sampling techniques, using validated questionnaires. Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics.
Results: A total of 380 patients with T2DM participated in this study (132 men and 248 women). Majority of them were married 304 (80%), with age above 40 years were 364 (95.8%) and majority on oral hypoglycemic drugs 355 (93.4%).
Results indicated that most of respondents, 100(26.3%) had average knowledge on physical exercise. Majority, 280(73.7%) had positive attitude to exercise practice. Majority, 304(80%) had poor practice of exercise.
There was significant association between knowledge and practice of exercise (p=0.00). Furthermore, significant associations were found between positive attitude and practice (p=0.00), and socioeconomic status (p = 0.00) but there was no association between knowledge and diabetic duration (p>0.05).
Conclusion and Recommendation: Patients with demonstrated average knowledge with positive attitude and poor practice of exercise for plasma blood glucose control.
Diabetes educational programs should be developed that will help and motivate Tanzanian diabetic patients to engage in physical exercise for diabetes management and improvement of quality of life. Also further researches on this topic should be done identify reasons for poor practice.