Self-Care Performance in Children and Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Abstract

Background: The key factor in the management of diabetes mellitus (DM) is promoting self-care behavior, which may help to control patients’ blood glucose appropriately. The first step in DM management is to identify the patients’ self-care needs. Objectives: The present study aimed to determine and compare self-care performance between children and adolescents with type 1 DM (DM-1). Patients and Methods: This descriptive-analytical research was conducted on 99 children and adolescents with DM-1 who were referred to the Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute of Isfahan in the first half of 2012. The participants were recruited using convenience sampling procedure. The data were collected using researcher-made questionnaire; the reliability and validity of this questionnaire were examined and approved before administration to the subjects. The data were analyzed using SPSS. Results: The items were quantified on a five-point Likert scale. With regard to nutrition, 36.4% of children and 40.9% of adolescents had moderate performance. Moreover, 56.3% of children and 47% of adolescents showed moderate performance regarding DM management and 37.9% of adolescents had moderate performance in exercise training. The subjects had good and very good self-care performance scores. The results showed no significant difference in the mean scores of overall self-care performance between children and adolescents; however, there was a significant difference in the mean scores of exercise training and glucose self-monitoring between males and females, which indicated females’ weaker performance in comparison to that of males regarding these two factors (P = 0.02). Conclusions: Identifying the needs of children and adolescents with DM-1 in terms of self-care and education may help them to have better performance in management, control, and prevention of DM complications.