Diabetes knowledge and physician compliance: Evidence of links in a large South African sample

Diabetes is not only a serious health problem in developed nations, it is also a critical dilemma in the developing world - and the crisis is growing. Despite this emerging concern, relatively little is known about attitudes toward the disease, particularly with regard to cognition, affective aspects and behavioural intentions. This paper reports on the preliminary development of a scale designed to assess attitudes regarding diabetes in South Africa. It then ties attitudes toward diabetes to physician compliance using the same respondents. The findings suggest that those patients with the lowest levels of diabetes knowledge are also those least likely to comply with the instructions of healthcare professionals, a scenario that does not bode well for the treatment of the disease in this sample. Implications for public health marketing are discussed, limitations of the study acknowledged and avenues for future research identified.