Eureka! Institutional Repository

Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a demanding, time-consuming chronic disease that requires continuous care and effort from the patient and his family. The school consumes significant and active time from everyday life and the absence of parents passes diabetes management to third parties or to the child itself at older ages. Informed about diabetes issues and willing to help educators consist an important help for the child himself and for his family. In addition, informed teachers can recognize precursory symptoms of type 1 diabetes mellitus in their students and help in early diagnosis of the disease and prevent diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition for the child. The aim of this study was to assess the level of knowledge of primary school educators in Greece regarding type 1 diabetes mellitus and, in particular, in recognizing its precursor symptoms, aiming in designing successful informative campaigns targeting this population group. The main research tool used was a questionnaire designed for this study and consisted of three parts: the first with 4 questions concerning demographics of the respondent, the second with 20 questions intended to evaluate the respondent's knowledge on Type 1 diabetes mellitus and the third part consisted of 13 questions expressing personal views of the respondent regarding functioning of the school in relation to type 1 diabetes mellitus. 375 completed questionnaires were collected in total, 85 (22.67%) were completed by men, and 290 (77.33%) by women. The majority of participants had higher education (64.26%), while a significant percentage (24.27%) had a postgraduate diploma. 239 (63.73%) questionnaires were filled by employees in Elementary school, 72 (19.20%) from Kindergarten workers and 64 (17.07%) from workers in Nurseries, while out of the total, 246 (65.60%) were employed in public sector, while 129 (34.40%) were working in private sector. Regarding knowledge about diabetes, the percentage of correct answers was 80.29 ± 11.50% in total. Men responded with a higher percentage of correct responses compared to women but with a small, statistical no significant difference (80.71 ± 10.58% vs. 80.17 ± 11.77%). With respect to age, the age group of above 45 years responded better than all other groups to a correct response rate of 84.01 ± 10.00% and this was statistically significantly higher than the age group of 25-30 years (76.38 ± 14.54%, P <0.001) and the 35-40 age group (75.38 ± 9.84%, P <0.001), the latter being the age group with the worst percentage of correct answers. Moreover, University graduates shown higher rates of correct answers (81.78 ± 9.90%) followed by holders of postgraduate degrees (78.57 ± 13.02%) and High school graduates (78.16 ± 15.47 %). Finally, employees in public sector showed a statistically significant higher percentage of correct answers compared to those working in private sector (82.56 ± 9.71% vs. 75.97 ± 13.32%, P <0.001). The third part of the questionnaire highlighted that 10.13% of Greek educators do not know that a child may suffer from diabetes, while 25.87% do not know that diabetes mellitus is a life-threaten disease id the diagnosis is delayed. Finally, 6.67% believes that a child with type 1 diabetes should quit school and 7.47% believe that diabetes mellitus is a contagious disease. Paradoxically, statistically significantly higher rates of correct answers were given by educators who did not have experience with children with type 1 diabetes mellitus (81.78% vs. 75.71%, P = 0.001), as well as those who answered negatively to the question whether there isspecial care for children with diabetes in their school unit (e.g., presence of school nurse, etc. (81.33% vs. 78.91%, P = 0.010)). Finally, those who responded positively to whether they received education on diabetes as educational staff answered with a statistically lower percentage of correct answers than those responding negatively (76.21% vs. 82.41%, P <0.001). In conclusion, a significant proportion of Greek primary school educators have low level of knowledge and many misconceptions about important issues associated with type 1 diabetes mellitus that may occur in some of their students. The results of this study can be utilized to carefullydesign and target an informative campaign aimed at this important population and, in particular, focusing at the precursor symptoms of the disease, aiming in contributing to a timely and life-saving diagnosis.