Structural model of self‐care agency in patients with diabetes: A path analysis of the Instrument of Diabetes Self‐Care Agency and body self‐awareness

AIM: The aim of this study was to examine a causal model of self‐care agency by exploring the relationship between the structure of “body self‐awareness” and the structure of the Instrument of Diabetes Self‐Care Agency (IDSCA). METHODS: The participants were 353 patients with diabetes. The internal consistency of the six items for body self‐awareness was examined by calculating the factor structure using principal factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha. In order to examine the relationship between the seven factors in the IDSCA, a path analysis was conducted. RESULTS: With regard to the factor structure, the factor loading of these five items was 0.511–0.743 (α = 0.739). In the path analysis, “body self‐awareness” was influenced by the “ability to acquire knowledge” and had a direct effect (0.33) on the “motivation to self‐manage”, while “motivation to self‐manage” had an effect (−0.32) on the “ability to self‐manage”. The Goodness‐of‐Fit Index was 0.974. CONCLUSION: “Body self‐awareness” plays a part in the self‐care operation process and serves as an intermediary factor to enable the performance of self‐care operations by making the most use of self‐care agency. Moreover, striking a proper balance between self‐management that is focused on the treatment of diabetes and a person's ability for self‐management of diabetes was found to be important.