Glycemic control and coping with stress in type 2 diabetes patients

Abstract

Background: The purpose of the study is finding out how the “style of coping with stress” in type 2 diabetes patients is influenced by glycemic control.Methods: The study was conducted in cross-sectional design and conducted on 182 Type 2 Diabetes patients who applied to the endocrinology department of a university hospital. The Coping Styles Inventory (CSI) was used in the study. The t Test, One-WayAnova, Mann Whitney U and Kruskal Wallis Testes were used in the analyses.Results: The problem oriented style point median of the patients according to gender were 29 (15-46) in women, and 31 (14-48) in men (p<0.05); the emotion oriented style median values were 24 (5-40) in women, and 21 (4-35) in men (p<0.05). The submissive styles sub-scale point median according to the educational levels of the participants was found to be significantly higher in the illiterate and primary school graduate group when compared with the others (p<0.05). A reverse-proportional relation was found between the use of self confident style sub-scale of the patients and the HbA1c levels (p<0.05).Conclusions: It has been determined in our study that men use the problem oriented style coping with stres behaviors, and women use emotion oriented coping with stres behaviors. As the HbA1c levels of the patients increased, their coping self confident style sub-scale scores of them decrease. Glycemic control of diabetes patients must be ensured regularly in order to enable them to cope with stress.