Aim: To assess the awareness about diabetes mellitus and diabetic retinopathy among people attending ophthalmic OPD.

Materials and methods: It is descriptive cross sectional study. A semistructured questionnaire prepared and data was collected and analyzed to determine the level of awareness among the people attending ophthalmic OPD.

Results: This study includes 450 people of which 243(54%) male and 207(46%) female with mean age of 41.7 year.213(47.3%) people are well aware of diabetes mellitus and its complications. Only 50% (225) of people knew that diabetics are more likely to develop eye problem than non diabetics. Interestingly 76.4% of diabetics have misconception that diabetes mellitus occurs only in old age. >40% of people studied do not have an idea of diabetes, its complications.

Conclusion: Awareness and knowledge regarding diabetes, its complications are still grossly inadequate. It is a need of hour to increase awareness among people about diabetes, its complications.