Self-Care Performance in Children and Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

examined and approved before administration to the subjects. The data were analyzed using SPSS. Results: The items were quantified on a five-point Likert scale. With regard to nutrition, 36.4% of children and 40.9% of adolescents had moderate performance. Moreover, 56.3% of children and 47% of adolescents showed moderate performance regarding DM management and 37.9% of adolescents had moderate performance in exercise training. The subjects had good and very good self-care performance scores. The results showed no significant difference in the mean scores of overall self-care performance between children and adolescents; however, there was a significant difference in the mean scores of exercise training and glucose self-monitoring between males and females, which indicated females’ weaker performance in comparison to that of males regarding these two factors (P = 0.02). Conclusions: Identifying the needs of children and adolescents with DM-1 in terms of self-care and education may help them to have better performance in management, control, and prevention of DM complications.