A Study of Factors Predicting Self-care Behavior in Diabetics

Kim, Young Ock

Abstract

To determine factors affecting self-care behavior if diabetics, the relationships of hardiness, family support, demographic and medical variables to self-care behavior were investigated in 180 samples with non-insulin dependent diabetes mellitus. In stepwise multiple regression analysis, 26.76% of the variance in self-care behavior was accounted for by family support(15.52%), age(7.76%), and clinical history(2.07%). To compared the magnitude of predictor's significance by gender, stepwise multiple regression was conducted separatively by gender group. In the male sample 25.22% of the variance in self-care behavior was accounted for by family support, age, and challenge. In the female sample family support, age, and committment were significant predictors in self-care behavior with 28.82% of the variance. The results highlight the value of family support in self-care behavior in diabetics regardless of gender difference. According to the finding of this study, family support is the most significant predictor of self-care behavior in NIDDM. This implicates that in future diabetic care, a family member should be encouraged to participate in the patient education process. Also as hardiness is not supported by a unidimensional construct, more empirical studies are recommended to differentiate the conceptual traits for the three subconcept of hardiness.