People’s reasoning about diagnosis in type 2 diabetes

Abstract

Aim and objective. To identify how people with type 2 diabetes reason around their experiences of acquiring diabetes.Background. Effective self management after getting the diabetes diagnosis lowers the risk to developing late diabetes complications. However the diagnosis experience has received little attention in nursing research as well as psychological and sociological research and therefore the interest in the current study was to further explore the diagnosis experience among people with type 2 diabetes.Methods. Face‐to‐face narrative interviews were conducted in 2006 with nine persons with type 2 diabetes living in Mid Sweden and with 14 living in North Sweden.Results. Three main categories emerged. They were ‘Diagnosis in a time perspective’, and included the three subcategories ‘Was prepared and diagnosis was easily integrated’, ‘Was not prepared and not having diabetes yet’ and ‘Was not prepared but diagnosis is successively integrated’. The second category emerged as ‘Emotional reactions on diagnosis’ and consisted of the following subcategories ‘Reacted neutrally – the diagnosis was not threatening at all’, ‘Strived to take control over one’s emotions’ and ‘Diminished the threats – is not really ill yet’. The third category was ‘Cognitive reasoning about the diagnosis’. It consisted of the subcategories ‘Did not consider diabetes to be an illness’, ‘Experienced diabetes as a disease hard to understand’ and ‘Decided not to bother about it’.Conclusion. The findings may help nurses working in any country to understand the importance of how to give information about diagnosis and focus on diagnosis experiences among persons with type 2 diabetes.Relevance to clinical practice. Persons newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes should get adequate time to discuss the situation ongoing with the diabetes specialist nurse or a doctor but our findings are easily transferable to other diseases or other health professionals.