Social Determinants Related to Type 2 Diabetes Self-Care and Control Measures

Introduction: Diabetes Mellitus (DM) as a common metabolic disorder, is a controllable disease by the self-care and maintaining the blood sugar. This study is designed to investigate the social determinants of diabetes self-care and control measures. Methods: It is an analytical cross-sectional study conducted on 310 type-2 DM patients of Shiraz University of Medical Science by convenient sampling method. Self-care behaviors data were collected by self-care scale of Toobert and Glasgow from January to April 2017. Demographic data and serum level of HbA1c were collected. Data were analyzed by SPSS 16 and the significance level was considered as 5%. Results: In this study, 310 patients with Mean±SD age of 52.11±8.20 were investigated. Significant relationships were observed between self-care and education level (p=0.02) and job (p=0.005). Also a significant reverse relationship was observed between diabetes control and physical activity, weight management and self-care (p<0.05). Conclusion: Results showed that education level and job can increase self-care especially in weight management and physical activity; therefore, increase of these factors will result in better control of diabetes. In terms of job, it was observed that retired people had more self-care which could be due to their education level and having enough time for these actions.