Department of Public Health, Graduate School of Medicine, Juntendo University, Tokyo 113-8421, Japan.
Advanced Research Institute for Health Sciences, Juntendo University, Tokyo 113-8421, Japan.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2021 Jul 8;18(14):7302. doi: 10.3390/ijerph18147302.
Diabetes patients, due to the chorionic nature of the disease, need complex and long-term care for control and prevention of complications. The patients themselves find it difficult to adopt appropriate disease management after diagnosis and they need social support from family, friends, and their environment, especially in lower- and middle-income countries where medical service is limited, and they need self-care of disease and lifestyle modification. In Myanmar, however, the study for social support among diabetes patients is still limited. Therefore, we conducted a case-control study to investigate the social support among diabetes patients and the association between socioeconomic factors in Yangon, which has the highest prevalence of diabetes in Myanmar. Social support between diabetes patients who came to diabetes special clinics and non-diabetes community control was assessed by applying transculturally translated ENRICHD Social Support Instrument (ESSI). Among the diabetes patients' group, more than 70% had high perceived social support, specifically higher level of informational and emotional social support. Robust multiple regression models revealed significant positive associations between total social support and independent variables: value < 0.001 for monthly household income and being married, and value < 0.05 for household number and frequency of having meals together with family. These findings suggest that perceived social support among patients with diabetes may be mainly affected by the patients' family conditions, such as household income and living with a spouse, in Myanmar culture.
糖尿病患者由于疾病的特殊性，需要进行复杂且长期的护理，以控制和预防并发症。患者自身在确诊后难以采取适当的疾病管理措施，他们需要来自家庭、朋友和环境的社会支持，特别是在医疗服务有限的中低收入国家，他们需要自我管理疾病和改变生活方式。然而，在缅甸，针对糖尿病患者社会支持的研究仍然有限。因此，我们进行了一项病例对照研究，以调查仰光糖尿病患者的社会支持情况，仰光是缅甸糖尿病患病率最高的地区。我们通过应用跨文化翻译的 ENRICHD 社会支持量表（ESSI）评估了糖尿病专科诊所和非糖尿病社区对照组的糖尿病患者之间的社会支持情况。在糖尿病患者组中，超过 70%的患者感知到较高的社会支持，特别是在信息和情感社会支持方面。稳健的多元回归模型显示，总社会支持与月家庭收入和已婚状况呈显著正相关（ 值<0.001），与家庭人口数和与家人一起用餐的频率呈显著正相关（ 值<0.05）。这些发现表明，在缅甸文化中，患者的家庭状况，如家庭收入和与配偶同住，可能主要影响糖尿病患者的感知社会支持。
