Factors Related to Health Care Behaviors of Hospitalized Diabetic Patients at Theong Hospital

Abstract

            This cross-sectional study aimed to identify factors related to health care behaviors of hospitalized diabetic patients at Thoeng hospital, Thoeng District, Chiang Rai Province. Purposive sampling was used to recruit 120 diabetic patients admitted in Thoeng hospital. The research instruments consisted of 1) demographic data, 2) diabetes knowledge questionnaire, 3) perception of diabetes, 4) enabling and reinforcing factors for promoting self-care behaviors and 5) self-care behavior questionnaire. The questionnaire was approved by three experts. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics using frequency, percentage and mean. The relationship between factors and self-care behavior was tested using Pearson's correlation statistics.

            The research finding revealed that 73.33% of them were female with an average age of 66.32 years (SD.=10.63).  The average duration of diagnosis of diabetes was 9.94 years (SD.=7.29)  and 39.16% of them were treated by pills, their average blood sugar level was 201.12 mg% (SD.=147.62) and 93.33% of them had debates complications. They had low level of self-care behaviors, and moderate level of diabetes knowledge. However, their perception of diabetes was at good level. The most enabling factors received was a blood glucose test in the community (93.34%). Also, the reinforcing factors received was the diabetics information regarding self-care behaviors from public health workers (91.66 %). There were four factors significantly related to the health care behavior of diabetic patients:  knowledge (r = 0.205), perception of diabetes (r = 0.239), enabling factors (r = 0.253) and reinforcing factors (r = 0.319). Research suggests that public health officials should provide activities for promoting knowledge and accurate perception of diabetes since it is an important predisposing factor affecting the health care behaviors of diabetic patients. Also, the enabling in particular, providing a blood glucose test in the community and reinforcing factors especially providing information on diabetes should be provided in order to encourage diabetic patients to have good health care behaviors.