Association of health literacy and self-management practices and psychological factor among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the association between sociodemographic, clinical, and health literacy and the presence of depressed mood and their relationships to diabetes self-management among type 2 diabetes mellitus)T2DM(patients in Saudi Arabia. Methods: A total of 352 T2DM patients from 2 public tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia participated in this descriptive cross-sectional study between December 2016 and February 2017. All respondents answered a 4-part questionnaire, which includes demographic data, Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire)DSMQ(, 36item test based Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults, and a 2-item Patient Health Questionnaire)PHQ-2(. The Chi-square test and logistic regression analysis were conducted to determine the relationship and significant predictors for self-management among T2DM patients. Results: The analysis showed that majority of the participants had low to marginal functional health literacy. The overall DSM-16 score was good, indicating more effective self-care, while 20% of the participants had a score of 2 or more in the PHQ-2 indicating presence of depressed mood. No significant association was found between DSM and health literacy among the study participants while age, gender, educational level, employment status, and level of the depressive symptom were significantly associated with differences in the level of functional literacy of the participants. Conclusion: The study shows that nearly half of the T2DM patients that exhibited low level of functional health literacy had low diabetes self-management. Our findings also show that gender significantly affects diabetes self-management in which odds are a lot higher among females than males with diabetes selfmanagement. This study underscores the importance of proper counselling and education about diabetes control on both patients and family members.

Factors Affecting the health literacy Status of Patients with type 2 Diabetes through Demographic Variables: A Case Study from Iran

“…The results of the current study disclosed that there was no signi cant relationship between marital status and health literacy of diabetic patients. These results are consistent with the study of Ansari et al [38], Mohammadi et al [13], and Almigbal et al [56]. Nevertheless, it was inconsistent with the results of the study done by Alidosti et al .…”

The effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on self-management in patients with type 2 diabetics

“…These strategies increase individuals' trust and expectations with regard to maintaining positive behaviors [23]. However, health outcomes have deteriorated in the COVID-19 period because of factors such as increasing anxiety, stress and social isolation, difficulty in adhering to drug treatment, reduced physical activity, increased periods of immobility and changing eating habits which affect lifestyle behaviors, and disrupted sleep quality [25]. The results of the research supported H1: The COVID-19 pandemic has an effect on self-management in people with type 2 diabetes.…”

“…In the study by Al-Qahtani [ 16 ], it was determined that being married and having had a diabetes diagnosis for more than five years were risk factors affecting diabetes self-management. It was determined in a study by Almigbal et al [ 24 ] that age and gender were risk factors affecting diabetes self-management. The results of our study are similar to the pre-COVID-19 period.…”

Electronic-health in Saudi Arabia: A review

“…It is hard to get authorization from the top management on recruiting new information professionals in health. These findings are mainly concerned with the results reported in other studies such as Almigbal et al (2019) study that stated that participants with insufficient health awareness tend to exercise more diabetes self-management strategies, possibly because of the understanding of the dangers of diabetes complications (Almigbal et al, 2019). Cruz et al (2018) showed that the planning process of e-Health was disorganized in most hospitals in the country.…”