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Background  Diabetes mellitus is a chronic non-communicable disease (NCD) often associated with poor psychosocial and health outcomes. Available evidence suggests that patients’ knowledge about the disease is fundamental to its treatment and prevention or delaying of complications. Therefore, this study assessed the level of knowledge of diabetes patients on diabetes mellitus and its associated factors.  Methods  A descriptive cross-sectional study using a translated Nepalese version of the revised Michigan Diabetes Knowledge Scale was conducted among randomly selected patients with diabetes mellitus presenting to the outpatient department (OPD) of Madhyabindu Hospital, Nepal. Data were collected via an interviewer administered questionnaire and analyzed with MS Excel 2016 and IBM SPSS version 25 software.  Results  Among the 360 participants, 27.2% had good knowledge of diabetes and 72.8% had poor knowledge. Age, level of education, occupation, family history of diabetes, duration of the disease, presence of comorbidity, complications and body mass index (BMI) were significantly associated with knowledge of diabetes mellitus (p-value ≤ 0.05).  Conclusions  Based on the study findings, it is important that diabetes self-management education and support (DSMES) programs should be implemented and/or strengthened at the Madhyabindu Hospital and targeted communities to improve diabetes patient’s knowledge on their disease condition and self-care practices.

Introduction: Upper Gastrointestinal Bleeding is a common medical emergency that is broadly classified into variceal and non-variceal bleeding. Preendoscopicemperical treatment is based on clinical findings and laboratory parameters. The article aimed to compare these parameters among variceal and non-variceal bleeding. Materials and Methods: This is a retrospective descriptive study conducted in a tertiary level referral hospital after taking approval from the Institutional review board. The data included was from September 2020 to August 2021. All patients with relevant data who underwent upper GI endoscopy were enrolled. The clinical and laboratory parameters were compared using appropriate statistical tests. Results: A total of 85 patients were studied with 40 (47.06%) in the variceal and 45 (52/94%) in the non-variceal group. Significantly more patients in the variceal bleeding group had a history of alcohol consumption (85% vs 60%) and smoking history (52.50 % vs 31.10%) compared to the non-variceal group. Jaundice, ascites, splenomegaly, low platelet count, and high INR all were predictors of variceal bleeding (p<0.005). In the variceal group, 39 (97.5%) needed endo therapy compared to only 4 (8.9%) in the non-variceal group. Conclusions: Clinical and laboratory parameters differ significantly in the variceal and non-variceal groups which can guide the pre-endoscopic management of the patients.

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Introduction: Upper gastrointestinal bleeding is a common medical emergency with significant morbidity and mortality. Its causes can be classified under variceal bleeding or non-variceal bleeding. Peptic ulcer and variceal bleeding are common causes. Thus, this study aims to find the prevalence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding among patients attending the Department of Emergency in a tertiary care centre. Methods: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted on patients admitted to the Department of Emergency a tertiary care centre from September 2020 to August 2021 among 3375 patients. The ethical approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Committee of the hospital (Reference number: 328). Patients presenting with the clinical features of upper gastrointestinal bleeding in the form of hematemesis or melena were enrolled after written informed consent. Data entry was done in Statistical Packages for the Social Sciences version 20.0. for descriptive analysis. Point estimate at 95% Confidence Interval was calculated along with frequency and percentage for binary data. Results: Out of 3375 admissions in the Department of Emergency, 85 (2.52%) (1.99-3.05 at 95% Confidence Interval) patients presented with upper gastrointestinal bleeding. Conclusions: The prevalence of upper gastrointestinal bleeding is lower in comparison to other studies done in similar settings.