Social support, self-efficacy and their correlation among patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: A primary care perspective

ABSTRACT

Introduction: Social support and self-efficacy are factorsthat influence patients’ health behaviour. However, therelationship between these two factors among patients withType 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) has not been adequatelyexplored. This study aims to report social support and selfefficacy of Malaysian T2DM patients, and their correlations.Methods: This cross-sectional questionnaire study involved329 patients with T2DM who received their follow up at apublic primary care clinic. Patients were selected viasystematic random sampling. Patients self-completedlocally adapted versions of the Medical Outcomes Study(MOS) Social Support Survey and Diabetic Management SelfEfficacy Scale (DMSES). The scores of both tools wereanalysed to determine the association and correlationbetween social support and self-efficacy.Results: The mean score for overall social support was72.7±21.40 score range (0-100). “Affectionate support” wasrated the highest averaged mean score at 78.31±23.71 (scorerange 0-100). The mean DMSES score was 147.6±35.5(score range0-200), of which “medications” subscale wasrated the highest with averaged mean scores 9.07±1.67(score range 0-10). Overall social support and self-efficacywere found to be weakly correlated (r=0.197, p<0.001).However, all subscales of social support were moderatelycorrelated with “medications” subscale of self-efficacy.Conclusion: Social support is significantly associated withpatients’ self-efficacy in handling their own medications.