High levels of self-efficacy in patients with type 2 diabetes attending a tertiary level clinic

Abstract

Self-management is a vital element in the care of type 2 diabetes patients. In turn, self-efficacy plays a major role in patients’ self-management. Self-efficacy is the patient’s personal judgement of his/her confidence in performing aspects of diabetes self-management. This study investigated the level of self-efficacy of patients attending the Pretoria Academic Hospital Diabetes Clinic, in the light of high levels of re-admission due to complications, suggesting low self-efficacy levels. Eighty type 2 diabetes patients, mean age of 59 years, completed the published IDEALL baseline questionnaire, to establish a self-efficacy score. Relationships between self-efficacy and demographic factors were investigated using the chi-square test. The mean self-efficacy level of the sample population is excellent (mean = 85.44%). Although self-reported self-efficacy levels are excellent, in comparison to the Sarkar study (2006) in which participants only scored “fair”, it is speculated that self-efficacy is not transferred to self-management behaviour in this population. Afrikaans and English speaking participants score significantly better than those from other language categories. There is a positive relationship between self-efficacy and level of education and employment status (tended towards significance with p values of 0.06 and 0.07 respectively). Although self-efficacy scores of clients at this tertiary level outpatient clinic are excellent, further research is necessary to quantify self-management strategies and to correlate these with self-efficacy levels.