Abstract

Objective: diabetes mellitus (DM) is the 6^th and 9^th cause of death in males and female, respectively and is an essential health challenge in all countries. The most important strategy for DM treatment is to control and prevent its side effects. Considering the importance of DM, this study aims to evaluate the attention of DM patients, referring to the elected clinic of Abadan University of Medical Sciences, to self-care programs”. Methodology: this is a descriptive-analytical and a cross-sectional study. Samples were randomly selected from diabetic patients referring to the elected clinic of Abadan University of Medical Sciences. Self-care questionnaire was completed by DM patients with inclusion criteria using self-reporting technique. Data was collected and coded, and analyzed by SPSS 22.

Results: according to analyses, 70% of the studied cases were female and 30% were male. Total self-care behavior of the studied patients was reported to be in moderate level. The evaluation of self-care scores revealed that the maximum and minimum scores belong to healthy meal plan 25.37 (4.76) and regular physical activity (exercise) 3.62 (3.73), respectively. With the severity of 0.197, age had only an inverse correlation with regular physical exercises. In addition, no significant difference was observed between total self–care scores and the sub-scales of demographic variables. Conclusion: the results of this study suggest that relevant authorities should motivate patients to perform physical activities proportional to their age in order to promote self-care behavior among DM patients of Abadan. They should monitor the reason of week self-care behavior in the lack of regular exercises, controlled blood sugar and insulin-therapy and should endeavor to eliminate relevant hurdles.