The mediating role of social support on self-management and quality of life in cirrhotic patients

Abstract

Background Insufficient social support is linked to patients' inability to manage their chronic illnesses on their own, and cirrhosis patients are frequently related with malnourishment and physical inactivity that lowers their quality of life. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine the potential mediating function of social support in the relationship between self-management and quality of life, as well as the impact of exercise frequency and malnutrition risk assessment on these variables. Methods Convenience sampling was used to select cross-sectional data from 257 liver cirrhosis patients who visited the infection department of a tertiary hospital using in Zunyi City between 2021 and 2022. The Chronic Liver Disease Questionnaire (CLDQ), the Nutritional Risk Screening Tool (RFH-NPT), the Social Support Scale (SSRS), the Self-Management Behavior Scale for Cirrhotic Patients, and demographic questionnaires were used to evaluate the patients. Results （1）Social support and self-management had a positive correlation (r=0.668, 0.665, both P<0.001) with quality of life. (2) Self-management was found to have a direct predictive influence on quality of life by mediation analysis, while social support was found to have a mediating effect between the two variables of 0.489 (95% CI: 0.362,0.629) and 40.58% of the overall effect was accounted for by the indirect effect. (3) Social support, self-management, and quality of life were all influenced independently by the frequency of exercise and the assessment of malnutrition risk. (4) After confounders were eliminated from the regression model analysis, Model I accounted 14.5% of the variance in the quality of life control variables, while Model II explained 49.5%. 56.9% of the variation in quality of life was explained by Model III once the social support variable was included. Conclusions Quality of life is enhanced by self-management through the mediation of social support. Social support and self-management were additionally moderated by the frequency of exercise and the assessment of nutritional risk, both of which were independent factors. These results imply that patients with cirrhosis may experience an improvement in quality of life from self-management programs designed to strengthen social support.