History and Objectives: Due to the prevalence of diabetes mellitus and the importance of controlling its well known side effects and in order to determine the state of patients with diabetes, the present study was conducted at the Shaheed Beheshti hospital in Kashan in 1997.

Materials and Methods: A descriptive study was carried out on 100 patients who were receiving insulin. The control of the illness was determined on the basis of HbA1c measurements. Values under 8% were considered as good control, values between 8-11 were considered as fair and values over 11% were considered as poor control. HbA1c was determined by gel electrophoresis. Patients records, age, sex educational levels, type of diabetes, type of insulin prescribed, number of insulin injections, duration of insulin therapy and BMI were recorded for each patient. The rate of poor control and confidence interval for the population and the effect of influencing factors were assessed.

Results: From 100 patients, 41 patients were male and mean age was 58 years and range was 16 to 80 years. 70% of patients were illiterate and 40% of the patients were type I diabetes mellitus. All patients were receiving insulin at the time of study. 3% of patients had blood control, 22% fair and 75% had poor diabetic control. Patients having been under insulin therapy for more than 5 years, NPH alone, one injection per day and type I diabetes mellitus were under increased the chance of poor control.

Conclusion: Due to high prevalence of poor diabetic patients, further analytical study is needed in order to elucidate the underlying factor for poor diabetic control and subsequently, experimental studies are required in order to reduce the rate of poor control.