Understanding Self-Care Behaviours among Type II Diabetes Patients: A Behaviour Change Models' Perspective

Self-care behaviours among diabetes patients is often hindered because of various psycho-social factors which become obstacles to their better diabetes management and its proper outcome. The current study aims to find out these psycho-social factors that influence the execution of self-care behaviours among Type II diabetes patients from the perspective of various behaviour change models.

The study adopted a correlational research design. A total of 266 participants above the age group of 18 years and diagnosed with type 2 diabetes were selected using purposive sampling from the Indian state of Karnataka. The data were collected using The Health Belief Questionnaire, Theory of Planned Behaviour Questionnaire (TPBQ), Socio-Ecological Model Questionnaire, and Diabetic Self-Care Activities Revised (SDSCA-R). The data were analysed using descriptive statistics, Pearson product-moment correlation and multiple regression.

From the findings, it was observed that the domains of perceived susceptibility, cues to action and subjective norms are positively correlated with self-care behaviours significantly at p<0.05 levels, while the domains of socio-ecological theory, personal, interpersonal, media and policy and community organizations are significantly positively correlated with self-care behaviour at p<0.01 levels. The linear regression of the domains of health belief model, theory of planned behaviour and socio-ecological theory on self-care behaviour showed that the statistically significant final model explained 14.9% (R2 =.149), F (3,262) =15.337, p< 0.000. The significant predictors are community at p<0.000 level, self-efficacy and perceived severity at p<0.05 levels.

The study results ascertain the necessity of a psychosocial approach or the sociocognitive perspective to understand the factors that actually enable a diabetes patient to engage in more self-care behaviours. In the Indian scenario, where health literacy is very minimum, the findings of the study can be used to implement better strategies for diabetes management both at the level of medical/mental health professionals and at the level of media and policy.