Self-care Assessment in Patients with Diabetes in Qom city in 2013

Background & Aims of the Study: Diabetes is considered a major concern in the third millennia A.D. and is increasing day by day. This disease shows a high prevalence in Iran as well. Meanwhile, self-care is the best solution for controlling and preventing diabetes. This study aimed at self-care assessment in patients with diabetes in Qom city in 2013. Materials & Methods: a total of 251 diabetes patients referring to Qom city Diabetes Association were chosen through simple accidental method. Two questionnaires including demographic and SDSCA standard questionnaires and also an information paper were used in this study. The questionnaires were completed through an organized interview in order to achieve the best accuracy. The data was analyzed by SPSS18 software by less than 0.05 significance. Results: The results showed that 32.99% of the subjects had no self-care activity against diabetes and only 7.97% of the subjects followed self-care activities during the week. FBS rate among the patients was 157.74 mg/dl and HbA1c rate was 7.74 mg/dl, and self-care score was also 46.53. The results showed an adverse significant relation between self-care and FBS plus HbA1c rates. Conclusions: Diabetic Patients lacked a desirable self-care condition in such a manner that patients didn’t take care of self-care activities including: having a diet, doing enough physical activity, controlling blood sugar, taking care of their feet, and also consuming drugs or injecting insulin, completely and regularly. Consequently, FBS and HbA1c rates were undesirable in the subjects.