Do adult patients with diabetes mellitus living in rural part of Ethiopia and having poor social support have disproportionately poor self-care practice? A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective This systematic review and meta-analysis is aimed at determining the pooled national percentage of diabetic self-care practice and its determinants among adult diabetic patients in Ethiopian. Methods Different electronic databases including PubMed/Medline and search engines such as Google scholar were used to retrieve published studies. The Joanna Briggs Institute quality appraisal checklists were used to appraise the quality of studies. Data were extracted using excel spreadsheets and analyses were done by STATA 14. Heterogeneity among studies was diagnosed using the I2 test. The DerSimonian and Laird random-effects model was employed for substantial heterogeneity (I2 > 50%). The pooled estimate of diabetic self-care and odds ratio was reported based on the 95% CI. Results A total of 3861 studies were identified, of which only 19 studies have reached the final qualitative synthesis and quantitative analysis. Well over half of the Ethiopian diabetic patients have good self-care 54.04% (47.07–61.01, I2 = 97.3, P Conclusions Despite the life-threatening complications of diabetes Mellitus, the percentage of patients applying self-care has remained low in Ethiopia, depicting the high proportion of diabetic patients are prone to develop long and short-term sequelae of diabetes Mellitus. Therefore, improving the client’s awareness about the disease and counseling clients about the significance of social support are believed to be possible strategies to improve self-care practice and policymakers are strongly recommended to combat complications to attain sustainable development goal 3.4 Aims to reduce premature death. Registration The protocol has been registered under the prospective Register of Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PROSPERO) and received a unique registration number CRD42020151014.