ABSTRACT
Diabetes mellitus
continues to be a global health problem with increasing importance across the
world by affecting the activities of daily living and self-care ability of
patients due to its incidence and troubles caused by it. The present study aims
at determining the effect of activities of daily living of patients with type 2
diabetes mellitus on their self-care agency. Methods: The population of this
descriptive study consisted of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus who were
being treated at the internal medicine clinic of a provincial state hospital
between July 2014 and November 2015 and its sample consisted of 150 diabetic
patients who volunteered to take part in the study and who were open to
communication. A personal information form, the Activities of Daily Living
(ADL) Scale, the Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADL) Scale and the
Self-Care Ability Scale (CAS) were used as data collecting tools. The data were
analyzed using descriptive statistics (numbers, percentages, mean, standard
deviation, mean rank and frequencies), the Shapiro-Wilk, Kruskal-Wallis
Variance Analysis, Mann-Whitney U test and Cronbach’s alpha formula and correlation
analysis. Results: Approximately 97.3% of the patients with type 2 diabetes
stated that they were independent in ADL and 75.3% of them in IADL. The
patients’ mean self-care ability score was found to be 83.85 ± 17.87 ADL and IADL were found to be affected by age,
marital status, education, duration of disease, willingness to receive further
education, and presence of another disease besides diabetes. There was a significant
correlation between the self-care agency score and marital status, education,
duration of disease, willingness to receive further education, presence of
another disease besides diabetes, regular checking of blood sugar and
compliance with diet. A significant positive correlation was found between the
patients’ activities of daily living and their self-care agency. Conclusion: The
patients’ activities of daily living were found to affect their self-care
agency. The personal and disease-related characteristics of patients should be
identified so that their self-care behaviors can be increased.