Eureka! Institutional Repository

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus as a chronic disease affecting the activities of daily life. Its regulation is a complex and demanding process. The self-management and self-control of the diabetic patient is now considered the "key" to success in dealing with it. The requirements of self care can be overwhelming, and lead to significant changes in the ability of a patient to function in everyday life. The adjustment to the disease is often accompanied by a variety of negative emotional reactions including anger, guilt, frustration, denial, and loneliness. Purpose: The aim of the thesis is to investigate the current situation in the selfmanagement and adaptation to disease patients suffering from type 2 diabetes. Procedure: The research material were patients of the clinic diabetic G.Papanikolaou hospital with diabetes type 2. The survey was conducted using as a research tool, a questionnaire based on existing valid questionnaires like PAID - Problem Areas in Diabetes Questionnaire and a questionnaire to measure the compliance of patients with type II diabetes. Compliance questionnaire includes questions concerning domains: physical-mental health, doctor-patient communication, personal conduct, recommendations for self-care, compliance with medical instructions. Results: The majority of the sample were mostly women (54.17%), with an age average of 69.809.1. Demographic factors (such as gender, age, marital status and education level) but especially the treatment and the value of ΗbA1c showed correlations with the subscales of self-care questionnaire and the questionnaire PAID at statistically significant level (p <0.05). The Cronbach’s a coefficient of self-care questionnaire was 0.590 and of the PAID questionnaire was 0.914. Conclusions: The negative emotions that are commonly experienced by patients with diabetes (such as fear, anger, frustration etc) greatly affect their treatment and their sugar levels. Additional research is needed and larger sample so that research findings can be generalized.