[Sense of coherence in type 2 diabetes mellitus debutants: case-control study]

The pathogenic model guides the study of risk factors for the disease; the salutogenic model guides the study of health assets, focused on problem solving, the ability of people to use their available resources and perceive their lives as coherent, structured and understandable. Its central element is the sense of coherence (SOC). The relationship of SOC with different phases of diabetes has been demonstrated, but not in diabetic debutants.

To evaluate the magnitude of the association of SOC between type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) debutants and absentees in people detected in the PREVENIMSS module.

case-control design. Cases were T2DM debutants with fasting plasma glucose ≥ 126 mg/dL; controls, people with plasma glucose < 100 mg/dL. Sample size was estimated for independent groups (101 cases and 202 controls) in which the SOC-29 questionnaire was administered; socio-demographic data was recorded and their file was reviewed. Reliability of SOC-29 was analyzed; univariate analysis, chi-squared and binary logistic regression were used to estimate association and odds ratio (OR).

T2DM debutants were 5 times more likely to achieve a low SOC score than patients without T2DM (p = 0.002; OR: 5.31, 95% confidence interval: 1.81-15.53).

High sense of coherence is an asset for the health of T2DM debutants; it is proposed to incorporate this topic into the DIABETIMSS program.