Introduction: dietary management is considered to be one of the cornerstones of diabetes care. Improvement of dietary practice alone can reduce glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1c) by an absolute 1 to 2% with the greatest impact at the initial stages of diabetes.

Methods: data from Hospital based cross sectional study were used to assess the level of dietary adherence and its determinants among diabetic patients. The morisky 8 item medication adherence scale was used to develop 10 item tool for evaluation of dietary adherence. Multiple logistic regression was conducted to identify factors which affect dietary adherence and variables with P vale < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

Results: more than half of 303 participants (55.7%) were found to be non-adherent to the recommended dietary approach. Gathering with family and friends and eating out were the major reasons for not being compliant with the recommended regimen. Attending diabetic nutrition education (AOR=2.8 95% C 1.97, 5.61) and having the disease for more than 10 years (AOR 2.9 95% CI 1.32, 5.84) were statistically significant with adherence to dietary recommendation.

Conclusion: non-adherence to recommended dietary practice was observed in more than fifty percent of patients; it is therefore a major public health problem. Attending diabetic nutrition education and length of diabetes greater than 10 years were the factors associated with adherence to dietary recommendation. This findings indicate that it is important to design strategies to help patients understand their dietary regimens and improve their adherence.