Evaluation of health beliefs, attitudes towards illness and metabolic control variables of patients with type 2 diabetes

Evaluation of Health Beliefs, Attitudes Towards Illness and Metabolic Control Variables of Patients with Type 2 Diabetes Aim: This study aims to determine health beliefs, attitudes towards illness and metabolic control of patients with Type 2 diabetes as well as investigating the relationship between these variables. Material and Method: This descriptive study was conducted between July 2014 and January 2017. The study sample consisted of 271 patients with Type 2 diabetes who met the research inclusion criteria. The Introductory Information Form, Metabolic Control Results, Health Belief Model Scale (HBMS), and Diabetes Attitude Scale (DAS) were used for data collection. Student's t test, Kruskal-Wallis test, Mann-Whitney test and Pearson Correlations were used to evaluate the data. Results: It was found that patients with diabetes had positive health beliefs in the perceived severity, perceived benefits, health-related activities sub-scales and positive total health beliefs and negative health beliefs in the perceived obstacles sub-scale. In the examination of attitude scores of patients with diabetes, patients were found to have the highest mean score in the diabetic severity sub-scale (3.07±0.70), and the lowest mean score in the need for special education sub-scale (1.41±0.22). Patients were found to have a positive attitude only in the diabetic severity sub-scale, whereas they have found to have a negative attitude in other sub-scales. A statistically significant and negative correlation was found between the mean hip circumference and the total HBMS scores of the patients (p<0.05). There was a significant positive correlation between the mean DAS scores and triglyceride levels of patients (p<0.05). There was a statistically significant negative correlation between the mean diabetes attitude scores and the total and mean health beliefs sub-scale scores, except the perceived susceptibility, of the patients with diabetes (p<0.001). Conclusion: In the study, patients with Type 2 diabetes were generally found to have positive health beliefs, and negative attitudes towards diabetes. Patients' health beliefs and diabetes attitudes were found to affect some metabolic control variables (HDL, hip circumference, triglyceride). It was also determined that there was a general negative correlation between the health beliefs and diabetes attitudes of patients. Keywords: Nursing, metabolic control, health belief, type 2 diabetes mellitus, attitude.