A comparison of self-care activities and diabetes distress among type II diabetic patients in urban and rural field practice area: a cross-sectional study

Abstract

Background: Diabetes is a challenging disease that is considered to be hard to live with as it encompasses a lot of restrictive instructions. Self-care diabetes has been defined as an evolutionary process of development of knowledge or awareness by learning to survive with the complex nature of diabetes. Diabetic distress refer to an emotional state where people experience feelings such as stress, guilt or denial that arise from the living with diabetes and the burden of self-management. The emotional distress facing people with diabetes due to such life style restriction. The objectives were to evaluate self-care activities related to diabetes among type II diabetic patients using diabetes self-management questionnaire and to assess and compare the diabetes distress score using diabetes distress scale among urban and rural type II diabetic patient.Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted in 140 urban and 70 rural study participants in field practice area of SNMC, Bagalkot. Diabetic self-care activities and diabetic distress were analyzed.Results: Our study showed most of the study participants had poor self-care activities. Our study showed 60% of rural participants screen positive for moderate diabetic distress where as 52.1% of urban participants showed positive for high diabetic distress.Conclusions: To combat the stress associated with diabetes, it is important to educate the patient to adapt with change in their life style following the diagnosis of diabetes.