Evolving Self-Care in Individuals with Schizophrenia and Diabetes Mellitus

Doing My Best: Poverty and Self-Care Among Individuals With Schizophrenia and Diabetes Mellitus

“…The model encompasses respondents' health beliefs about schizophrenia, diabetes, and the degree to which symptoms of mental illness influenced their ability to engage in effective diabetic self-care; it also incorporates the decisions that respondents made about self-care for their dual illnesses (El-Mallakh, 2006). Categories of the model include Mastering Mental Illness, Accommodating Diabetes, and Striving for Health ( Figure 1).…”

“…Accommodating Diabetes includes an additional subcategory: Applying Acquired Knowledge of Mental Illness to Diabetes Care. During this stage, respondents recognized that stability of their psychiatric symptoms was a crucial precursor to effective diabetic self-care; this realization strengthened their commitment to self-care for mental health (El-Mallakh, 2006).…”

“…Qualitative research typically yields a great deal of rich data, yet it is not feasible to describe the details of findings in a single report. To enhance the understanding of the Evolving SelfCare model described in the cited earlier article (El-Mallakh, 2006), this report presents an in-depth analysis of one component, Doing My Best. Development of the subcategory Doing My Best was guided by respondents' descriptions of the efforts required to successfully manage their diabetic self-care and to overcome the barriers that interfered with their ability to access the resources necessary for adequate self-care.…”

Common People : Physical health, lifestyle and quality of life in persons with psychosis and their striving to be like everybody else

“…Previous research has illustrated that the concept of self-care has been used only to a limited extent in connection with mental health (El Mallakh 2006). Rather, the focus has been on the patients' medical problems or diseases.…”

Theoretical Models of Health Psychology and the Model for Integrating Medicine and Psychology

“…Further complicating this observation is that some antipsychotic medications may pose increased risk for health problems. Atypical antipsychotics, for example, have been linked to the development of diabetes (Ananth & Kolli, 2005;Gianfrancesco, Wang, & Nasrallah, 2006), and those with psychotic disorders have particular difficulty managing their diabetes (El-Mallakh, 2006).…”