F
maryam karimi; Sara Ghorbani
Abstract
Objective: Over the past decade, the prevalence of diabetes has increased, especially in adolescents. On the other hand, adolescents with diabetes have difficulty controlling blood sugar, and controlling diabetes and taking care of themselves during adolescence is a challenge. Self-care is a set of spontaneous ...
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Objective: Over the past decade, the prevalence of diabetes has increased, especially in adolescents. On the other hand, adolescents with diabetes have difficulty controlling blood sugar, and controlling diabetes and taking care of themselves during adolescence is a challenge. Self-care is a set of spontaneous activities that are consciously and consciously carried out by the patient in order to understand the conditions and factors affecting them and to adopt a positive and specific attitude towards themselves and their disease. This disease has many negative effects on the mental health and quality of life of the affected person and their family. In fact, what happens within the family and the interaction between parents and children can be a key factor in creating resilience and reducing current and future risk associated with adverse events and inappropriate conditions. By equipping itself with problem-solving skills, the family can promote the health of its members and act as a mechanism against factors that harm the health of its members. Problem solving is a conscious, rational, and purposeful activity that enables adolescents to identify various possibilities around them when faced with conflicts and controllable events and use them to make appropriate decisions and solve problems. In this regard, adolescent emotional autonomy is one of the crises of adolescence that most parents are involved with their children. In this regard, Chia-Ying Chen et al. (2020) found that high emotional autonomy is significantly associated with poor management of diabetes control. Therefore, the present study aims to answer the research question of whether social support plays a mediating role in predicting self-care based on problem-solving skills, parent-child relationships, and emotional independence? Method: The statistical population of the study included all adolescents in Isfahan who were diagnosed with diabetes in 2017 according to clinical diagnoses. Questionnaires were purposefully distributed among 149 adolescents with diabetes. In order to collect data, the Diabetes Self-Care Questionnaire (Summary of Diabetes Self-Care Activities), the Standard Perceived Social Support Questionnaire (MSPSS), the Revised Social Problem-Solving Questionnaire (SPSI-R), the Parent-Child Relationship Assessment Questionnaire (PCRS), and the Stenberg and Silverberg Emotional Independence Questionnaire were used. Results: After collecting data and analyzing them descriptively and inferentially and presenting the model using statistical software, the results obtained indicated that social support in the dimensions of family, parent-child relationship, and emotional independence, as well as problem-solving skills in the dimensions of negative, impulsive, and avoidant strategies, played a role in the self-care of adolescents with diabetes in Isfahan (p<0.05). Also, the results of the path analysis showed that social support plays a mediating role in predicting self-care based on problem-solving skills with an effect size of 0.22 and parent-child relationship with an effect size of 0.18. Conclusion: Explaining the present findings, it can be stated that today, the analysis of diseases is not limited to biomedical factors, and a wide network of social factors, known as social determinants of health or factors affecting health, has gained a more prominent dimension in the scope and quality of health and disease. People with stronger problem-solving skills are naturally more capable of facing everyday challenges and finding appropriate solutions to their problems. However, the presence of social support from family, friends, and society can strengthen these skills. Also, social support resulting from the parent-child relationship increases the sense of belonging and acceptance in the individual and helps the individual to implement self-care behaviors (such as healthy eating, exercise, stress management, and adherence to medical recommendations) well in their lives.
