Abstract
Diabetes Mellitus 2 (DM2) affects 20% of the elderly population in Mexico, causes disability and death, and demands many life-style changes. Since DM2 control is largely responsibility of the patient, management itself is source of stress. Coping is a process by which persons face stressful situations, and active coping have proved being effective in disease control. Social-cognitive perspective suggests that self-efficacy believes can regulate human functioning, therefore they could promote specific coping if relations between them are found. The study aim was to examine the association between coping strategies and self-efficacy in DM2 management in a group of 126 Mexican adults over 54 years old (= 68.57, SD = 7.19), which answered an interview about sociodemographics data, self-efficacy in diabetes and coping strategies. The most common kind of coping used by the sample was self-recreation (= 50.41, SD = 19.50) and religious faith (= 50.04, SD = 17.65), and in self-efficacy the domain of taking the medicines had the greater score (= 90.25, SD = 16.08). Total score in self-efficacy had significant correlations with active coping (r = .402, p ≤ .01) and self-recreation (r = .291, p ≤ .01). We concluded that there are relationships between self-efficacy beliefs in diabetes management and active coping. The correlation found can be used to guide future interventions with these patients, but the relation should be studied deeper for directional search, if is proved that DM self-efficacy beliefs enhance active coping; self-efficacy based interventions should be promote.
Highlights
Proportion of old adults is increasing in the world population (United Nations, 2002), in Mexico in 2005 a total of 7.8 million people representing 7.5% of the total habitants were over 60 years old, by 2010 this number increased to 9.3 million people (8.6%) and it is projected that the elderly population in Mexico will reach 33.5 million (27.5%) in 2050 (National Population Council [CONAPO], 2010)
Coping used will be crucial to achieve control over the disease (Thoolen et al, 2008) and self-efficacy in DM management relate in how the individual copy with stressful situations (Gillibrand & Stevenson, 2006; Wagner & Tennen, 2007), so the aim of this study was to analyze the association between disease coping type and levels of self-efficacy for managing diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2) in general and its factors a group of elderly Mexicans citizens use
In the version of the self-efficacy instrument used in this study, five items were added and applied to 106 adults over 54 years, its factors fully agreed with the statement made by Del Castillo (2010), while the five additional items were grouped into a single factor which was called self-efficacy in risk regulation, earning an explained variance of 68.49, a total alpha of .897 and four factors with high alphas: healthy eating α= .933; physical activity α = .881; medicine α = .846 and risk reduction α =
Summary
Proportion of old adults is increasing in the world population (United Nations, 2002), in Mexico in 2005 a total of 7.8 million people representing 7.5% of the total habitants were over 60 years old, by 2010 this number increased to 9.3 million people (8.6%) and it is projected that the elderly population in Mexico will reach 33.5 million (27.5%) in 2050 (National Population Council [CONAPO], 2010).In the seniors diseases developed by the habits of a lifetime are often present, so as age increases the number of people with chronic diseases increases too (Bazo, Garcia, Maiztegui, & Martinez, 1999; Romero-Martínez et al, 2012).Among chronic diseases, diabetes mellitus type 2 (DM2) is a major cause of disability and death (Gutierrez, 2004; International Diabetes Federation, 2012; National System of Health Information, 2005; Zuñiga, Garcia, & Partida, 2004), affects more than 20% of people over 60’s (American Diabetes Association, 2001; Latin American Diabetes Association, 2008) and is rapidly expanding in Mexico (Olaiz et al, 2003; Villalpando et al, 2010). In the seniors diseases developed by the habits of a lifetime are often present, so as age increases the number of people with chronic diseases increases too (Bazo, Garcia, Maiztegui, & Martinez, 1999; Romero-Martínez et al, 2012). To control DM2, glycemic regulation is needed, and to reach it, medical therapy alone is not enough; it must be combined with healthy lifestyle habits (Cornell & Briggs, 2004; Horton, Cefalu, Haines, & Siminerio, 2008) known as DM2 management behaviors as, inter alia, healthy eating, physical activity, taking medication and risk reduction (American Association of Diabetes Educator, 2011a). Disease management combined with changes and peculiarities in the elderly, continuously face patients to external and internal demands often assessed as overwhelming and exceeding individual resources; forcing the person to perform cognitive and behavior efforts in order to handle the situations, this process is known as coping (Lazarus & Folkman, 1991)
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