Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2013 Oct 30:2:62.
doi: 10.4103/2277-9531.120864. eCollection 2013.

Importance of social support in diabetes care

Ghalmreza Sharfi Rad  1 , Leila Azad Bakht  2 , Avat Feizi  3 , Siamak Mohebi  4
Affiliations
Review

Importance of social support in diabetes care

Ghalmreza Sharfi Rad et al. J Educ Health Promot. .

Abstract

Background and objectives: Diabetes is one of the major concerns in the third millennium, affecting more people every day. The prevalence of this disease in Iran is reported to be high (about 7.7%). The most important method to control this disease and prevent its complications is self-care. According to various studies, this method has not found its proper place among patients with diabetes due to several reasons. The present study was aimed at determining the relationship between social support, especially family support, and self-care behavior of diabetes patients.

Materials and methods: This study was a narrative review in which the relevant papers of cross-sectional, cohort, clinical trial, and systematic review designs were selected using databases and scientific search engines such as PubMed, ProQuest, SCOPUS, and Elsevier, with the keywords diabetes, social support, and self-care. Moreover, Persian papers were selected from MEDLAB and IRANMEDEX databases and through searching the websites of original research papers published in Iran. All the papers published from 1990 to 2011 were reviewed.

Results: The results of the study indicated that the status of self-care and social support in patients with diabetes was not favorable. All the studied papers showed that there was a positive relationship between social support and self-care behavior. Also, some studies pointed to the positive effect of social support, especially family support and more specifically support from the spouse, on controlling blood sugar level and HbA1c.

Conclusion: As social support can predict the health promoting behavior, this concept is also capable of predicting self-care behavior of patients with diabetes. Therefore, getting the family members, especially the spouse, involved in self-care behavior can be of significant importance in providing health care to patients with diabetes.

Keywords: Diabetes; self-care; social support.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of Interest: None declared

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Roglic G, Unwin N, Mathers C, Tuomilehto J, Nag S, Connolly V, et al. The burden of mortality attributable to diabetes: Realistic estimates for the year 2000. Diabetes Care. 2005;28:2130–35. - PubMed
    1. International Diabetes Foundation. The International Diabetes Federation welcomes adoption of WHO global strategy on diet, physical activity and health. 2004. [Last accessed on 2009 Oct 19]. Available from: http://www.idf.org/home/indexcfm .
    1. Esteghamati A, Gouya MM, Abbasi M, Delavari A, Alikhani S, Alaedini F, et al. Prevalence of diabetes and impaired fasting glucose in the adult population of Iran: National Survey of Risk Factors for Non Communicable Diseases of Iran. Diabetes Care. 2008;31:96–8. - PubMed
    1. Dickson JA. Critical social theory approach to nursing care of adolescents with diabetes. Issues Compr Pediatr Nurs. 1999;22:143–52. - PubMed
    1. Funnell MM, Anderson RM. Empowerment and self- management of diabetes. Clin Diabetes. 2004;22:123–7.
  NODES
Association 1
COMMUNITY 2
INTERN 2
twitter 2