Depressive Symptoms and Ways of Coping of Patients with Diabetes Mellitus: Compared with Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients and Healthy Subjects / 신경정신의학

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVES: This study investigated how diabetes mellitus (DM) and depressive symptoms are related, and differed in terms of coping strategies. In addition, we compared those findings with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients. METHODS: 80 DM patients, 45 RA patients and 77 healthy subjects completed the Beck depression inventory (BDI) and the Korean version of the ways of coping checklist. RESULTS: BDI scores of depressed DM patients were significantly higher than healthy subjects (p<0.01) but not significantly with depressed RA patients. Both scores of active (p<0.01) and passive coping (p<0.05) in DM patients were significantly lower than healthy subjects (p<0.01), and the scores of wishful thinking of DM patients were significantly lower than RA patients (p<0.01). BDI scores of DM patients were significantly correlated with the number of complications and the scores of problem-focused coping (p<0.05). In the hierarchical regression analysis, even after controlling for clinical characteristics, coping strategies altogether could account for 31.0% of the variance of the depressive symptoms in DM patients significantly (p<0.01). CONCLUSION: DM patients showed significantly higher depression rate than healthy subjects but not than RA patients. In DM patients, insufficient coping strategies could explain substantial portions of depressive symptoms. Therefore, enhancing healthier coping strategies in addition to prevent medical complications might lessen depressive symptoms experienced by DM patients.