مجله علوم روانشناختی (Sep 2023)
Structural model of self-care of patients with type-2 diabetes based on emotional symptoms, and spirituality: The mediating role of self-compassion
Abstract
Background: Diabetes is a chronic, growing disease with serious and important physical and mental consequences. Self-care is very important in controlling this disease, and identifying factors affecting self-care such as emotional symptoms, spirituality, and self-compassion can help us better control this type of disease. A review of the research background shows that there are few studies in the field of type 2 diabetes self-care, so the present study tries to investigate the role of self-compassion on diabetes self-care through emotional symptoms and spirituality. Aims: The present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the structural model of the self-care relationship of patients with type 2 diabetes based on emotional symptoms and spirituality with the mediation of self-compassion. Method: The design of the current research was descriptive-correlational and structural equation modeling. The statistical population of the study included all patients with type 2 diabetes in Tehran in 2020-2021, 423 of whom were selected from Shariati, imam Khomeini hospitals, and Taban specialized health and diabetes polyclinic using available sampling method. In order to collect data, type 2 diabetes self-care questionnaires (Neamatizade et al., 2022), emotional symptoms (Wardenaar et al., 2010), self-compassion (Neff, 2003) and spirituality (Parsian & Dunning, 2009) were used. Also, research data were analyzed using structural equation modeling method and SPSS24 and AMOS24 software. Results: The findings of this research showed that the overall effect of emotional symptoms (β=0.274, P<0.01), spirituality (β=0.485, P<0.01) and self-compassion (P<0.01, 369) β=0/0) on self-care of type 2 diabetic patients was significant at the level of 0.01. Also, the results showed the indirect effect of emotional symptoms (β=-0.164, P < 0.01), spirituality (β = 0.098, P < 0.01) on the self-care of type 2 diabetic patients was significant at the level of 0.01. Based on this, it was found that self-compassion mediates the effect of emotional symptoms on self-care in a negative way and the effect of spirituality on self-care of diabetic patients in a positive and meaningful way. Also, the results showed that the variables of spirituality, emotional symptoms and self-compassion explain a total of 51% of the variance of self-care in type 2 diabetes patients. Conclusion: According to the obtained results, it seems that self-compassion has a mediating role in the relationship between emotional symptoms and spirituality and self-care of type 2 diabetes patients. Therefore, increasing self-compassion in these patients can be effective in improving the self-care of these patients by controlling negative emotional symptoms such as depression and anxiety and increasing spirituality.
