Tabari Biomedical Student Research Journal

Background & Objectives: Self-care is a process, which is performed by the
patients for the prevention of short- and long-term complications. This study
aimed to examine the barriers of self-care behavior in the patients afflicted with
diabetes mellitus type II.
Materials & Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted
on 131 diabetic patients refferring to Toba and Mostafavian subspecialty clinics,
using random sampling technique. The data were collected by a researcher-made
questionnaire rated on a Likert scale. Data analysis was performed using the
descriptive and analytic statistics through the SPSS version 20.
Results: The mean age of the patients was 55.62 years, including 55 males
(43.1%) and 74 females (56.9%). The identified self-care barriers included
physical (50.5%), educational (50%), economic (42.5%), psychological (32.3%),
and social (31.75%) barriers. Furthermore, there was no significant relationship
between the self-care barriers with the demographic characteristics (i.e., age,
gender, and occupation) of the patients (P=0.05).
Conclusion: Regarding the efficiency of the self-care and the identified barriers, it
is recommended to plan and design interventions targetted toward the prevention
and control of the diabetes and the improvement of the health and quality of life
in these patients.