Raveendran Aswathy, Vaishnavi Sowbarnika, Arulmozhi Madhivanan, Premanandh Kandasamy
Department of Community Medicine, Sri Manakula Vinayagar Medical College and Hospital, Puducherry, India.
J Family Med Prim Care. 2025 Jun;14(6):2251-2257. doi: 10.4103/jfmpc.jfmpc_1636_24. Epub 2025 Jun 30.
The increasing prevalence of diabetes mellitus poses a significant challenge to the healthcare system. Healthcare providers focus mainly on clinical targets, which explain the short-term benefits and limited long-term effects on outcomes. Patient experiences can be included in diabetes care to assist diabetic patients lead healthy lives. Despite the focus on complications and barriers, there is minimal research on the positive aspects of living with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. This study aims to fill the gap by identifying and exploring the positive experiences of diabetic patients that could enhance diabetes management, patient behaviour, and well-being.
This qualitative study was conducted among diabetic patients at the Urban Health and Training Centre, Villupuram. The respondents were selected using a purposive sampling method from the list of diabetic patients attending the non-communicable disease clinic. One-to-one interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide by asking participants open-ended questions about diabetes self-care, healthcare experiences, social networks, career aspirations, community involvement, and messages for newly diagnosed individuals with diabetes. Individual interviews were conducted until no new information was generated from the additional interviews and data saturation was attained. Manual content analysis was done from the transcripts.
The positive experiences were classified under four broad themes and eight categories, namely, mindset shift, optimism after seeing good results, dietary changes, healthy lifestyle choices, family support, treating doctor's guidance, self-care practices, and medication adherence.
Communicating positive experiences of people with diabetes promotes optimism, enhances self-care, and improves both mental and physical well-being.
糖尿病患病率的不断上升给医疗保健系统带来了重大挑战。医疗保健提供者主要关注临床指标，这些指标解释了短期益处以及对治疗结果的长期影响有限。患者体验可纳入糖尿病护理中，以帮助糖尿病患者过上健康的生活。尽管关注并发症和障碍，但关于1型或2型糖尿病患者生活积极方面的研究却很少。本研究旨在通过识别和探索糖尿病患者的积极体验来填补这一空白，这些体验可以改善糖尿病管理、患者行为和幸福感。
本定性研究在维鲁布尔姆城市健康与培训中心的糖尿病患者中进行。采用目的抽样法从参加非传染性疾病诊所的糖尿病患者名单中选取受访者。使用半结构化访谈指南进行一对一访谈，向参与者提出关于糖尿病自我护理、医疗保健体验、社交网络、职业抱负、社区参与以及给新诊断糖尿病患者的信息等开放式问题。持续进行个人访谈，直到额外访谈不再产生新信息且达到数据饱和。对访谈记录进行人工内容分析。
积极体验分为四个宽泛主题和八个类别，即心态转变、看到良好结果后的乐观情绪、饮食变化、健康生活方式选择、家庭支持、遵循医生指导、自我护理实践和药物依从性。
传播糖尿病患者的积极体验可促进乐观情绪，增强自我护理，并改善身心健康。
