ABSTRACT

Diabetes and obesity are growing public health issues, it is present in all social class and countries as it is a disease for young and old, rich and poor. This study was carried out to assess the health belief determinants of obesity and diabetes mellitus among adults in Ndioru community and World Bank housing estate, Abia State. Data were obtained from a cross sectional survey of 47 adults. A well-structured questionnaire based on the constructs of the Health Belief Model (HBM) was used to obtain data on perceived susceptibility, perceived severity, perceived benefits, perceived barriers and self-efficacy of obesity and diabetes mellitus. Also included were questions on socio-demographic and economic characteristics. The body mass index (BMI), waist hip ratio (WHR) and random blood glucose (RGB) of the adults were also obtained using standard procedures. Data obtained from the study was subjected to Statistical analysis, using IBM statistical package for social sciences version 22 (SPSS 22).The results from different variables revealed that many of the respondents (89%) were below the age of 40 years. Information on marital status showed that 61.7% were still single and others (36.2% and 2.1%) were married and divorced respectively. There were more females (59.6%) than males (40.4%) in the study. Civil servants were the least (10.6%) with others in employed (29.8%), traders 29.8%) or self-employed (29.8%), with more (48.9%) earning less than 18,500 naira. From the mean scores ofthe five health belief constructs that were studied The health belief determinants of obesity and diabetes mellitus when measured, showed that the respondents did not perceive themselves susceptible to obesity and diabetes mellitus(-0.11 and-0.27 respectively), they also did not perceive the severity of obesity and diabetes mellitus(-0.15 and-0.31 respectively) and for perceived barriers for engaging in preventive behaviour , the respondents scored -0.36 for obesity and -0.34 for diabetes mellitus. These negative values were not observed for perceived benefits (0.67, 0.74) and self efficacy(0.76,0.69) for obesity and diabetes mellitus respectively. Results on blood glucose status in the study area revealed that there were more (83.0%) adults with normal blood glucose levels than those with low and pre-diabetic glucose levels which were 8.5% respectively. The anthropometric status of the respondents showed that the prevalence of underweight and normal body mass index in the study area were 8.5% and 44.7% respectively, with overweight and obesity being 29.8% and 17% respectively. The result further revealed that a good number (29.8%) of the studied population were at high risk of cardiovascular disease having an average WHR of 0.93. The relationship between socio economic and demographic status of adults and health belief constructs showed that there was no significant relationship between any ofthe socio-demographic and economic variables and the health belief determinants of diabetes and for obesity, only unemployed respondents had a strong negative relationship (P> 0.05 r=-0.440) with perceived benefits of obesity . The correlation also showed a significant relationship between BMI and perceived being obese but no significant relationship between Random Blood Glucose (RBG) and perceived being diabetic. This study revealed that the adults all had a perception of the positive consequences, i.e., perceived benefits, caused by actions such as engaging in healthy lifestyle behaviors like proper dieting and exercising, disregarding their low perceptions towards their susceptibility ofthe health problems.