Patients' experiences in the self-management of diabetes mellitus : walking a fine line

• Main Author: Ternulf Nyhlin, Kerstin
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Medicin 1990
• Subjects: diabetes mellitus; self-care; adaptation; coping; concepts of health and disease; grounded theory; interaction
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-101774; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:91-7174-529-7

This study focuses on how diabetic patients manage to handle their disease,what has facilitated and what has impaired that process. The approach was to use a qualitative method as to enable the researcher to fathom the patients' point of view and to highlight their own experiences.Thus, the study is observational, describing processes, and does not aspire to give verification of the processes described. The study is based on interviews with 48 insulin dependent diabetic patients including newly diagnosed patients, patients who were regarded as well adapted with long duration of the disease but with no complications, and patients who had developed vascular complications. They were chosen in that way as to give a broad range of experiences representing different faces of the illness. It was found that the self-management of diabetes is an intricate matter, embodying categories that could be expressed as; Walking a fine line, Managing oneself physically, Managing oneself emotionally, Mastering life, Evading the problem of managing and Managing the health care system. Walking a fine line elucidates much of the behavioural variation in the data. It captures the patient's need to balance his emotional and physiological state, as well as his interactions with the health care system. Patients who manage the balancing act may enjoy good health but they are walking a fine line between maintaining this state and falling below par. It seemed that the ideal situation of interaction between the health care system and the patient was not applied in the context of the diabetic patients' everyday life. Patients had to invest considerable effort to cope, not just with their own condition, which is complex enough, but with the system officially charged to help them. === <p>Diss. (sammanfattning) Umeå : Umeå universitet, 1990, härtill 5 uppsatser.</p> === digitalisering@umu