Structural role of perceived benefits and barriers to self-care in patients with diabetes

INTRODUCTION AND GOAL: In diseases and disorders such as diabetes, treatment and disease management depends mostly on patient's performance. So, self-care is very important in these patients and they can affect their own welfare, functional capabilities, and disease processes by achieving self-care skills. Nowadays, we know that self care follows individual, psychological and social factors which its recognition can assist health care providing systems to carry out educational programs. This study aimed to investigate the role of perceived benefits and barriers in doing self-care behaviors among diabetic patients. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This study is a narrative review and articles with sectional, cohort, and interventional, clinical trial, qualitative and narrative designs were chosen using databases and academic search engines such as PubMed, SCOPUS, ProQuest, Elsevier and key words like self-care diabetes, perceived benefits and barriers. Persian articles were also selected using databases like IRANMEDEX, MEDLIB, as well as searching the articles in sites of domestic scientific magazines. RESULTS: Reviewed articles’ findings show the average situation of perceived benefits and barriers in diabetic patients regarding self-care. Qualified blood sugar (glucose) control, weight control, happiness feeling and expenses reduction are the most important perceived benefits. The most significant perceived barriers in self-care consist of lack of family support, shame feeling, forgetfulness and not being able to ignore foods’ flavor. CONCLUSION: Perceived benefits and barriers, as central constructs in some patterns and theories of behavior change, were related to self-care, so that it was directly related to perceived benefits and reversely related to perceived barriers. Therefore, these two constructs can be considered as strategies for promoting self-care behaviors in diabetic patients.