Predicting role of illness perception in treatment self-regulation among patients with type 2 diabetes.

Background and Objective: Impaired self-regulation negatively impacts self-efficacy, self-management, blood sugar control, and quality of life among patients with diabetes. Hence, identifying the predictors of self-regulation is a necessity for healthcare providers. The current study aimed to determine the predictive role of illness perception in treatment self-regulation in patients with type 2 diabetes. Methods: The current study is a descriptive cross-sectional study. A total of 200 patients with type 2 diabetes, who were referred to the only specialized clinic for endocrinology and diabetes affiliated with Qazvin University of Medical Sciences in 2019-2020, were recruited through a convenience sampling method. For data collection, the brief Illness Perception Questionnaire and the Treatment Self-Regulation Questionnaire were used. Collected data were analyzed by SPSS v21 using a multivariable regression model. Results: Mean and standard deviation scores of self-regulation and illness perception were 69.11 ± 17.61 and 36.21 ± 7.05, respectively. Results of the multivariate regression model revealed the significant correlations of self-regulation with illness perception, age, cardiovascular complications, diabetic retinopathy, and diabetic foot ulcers. Conclusions: In this study, participants presented a moderate level of self-regulation. The results also revealed that illness perception could be a predictor of improving patients' self-regulation. Therefore, providing infrastructure programs such as continuous education and appropriate care programs for diabetic patients to improve their illness perception can effectively improve their self-regulation behaviors.

Evaluation of clinical outcomes of patients with mild symptoms of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) discharged from the emergency department.

INTRODUCTION: This study was performed to determine the clinical outcomes of patients with mild symptoms of COVID-19 discharged from the emergency department. METHODS: The present descriptive-analytical cross-sectional study was performed on 400 patients discharged with a diagnosis of COVID-19 from the emergency departments of hospitals affiliated to Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in the time period of 21 March-21 June, 2020. The disease characteristics and demographic data were collected by phone calls during the first, third, and fourth weeks using a researcher-made questionnaire. Finally, the data were analyzed by univariate logistic regression and cross-tabulation using the IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows, version 20. RESULTS: In the first week of follow-up, 23(5.8%) patients died, of whom seven patients were female and 16 were male (mean age of death: 70.73±3.27). Out of 41 (10.3%) patients with underlying diseases, 7 (17.1%) died; but out of 359 (89.8%) cases with no history of disease only 16 (4.5%) died. The risk of death in subjects with a history of underlying diseases was 3.27 times higher than those without a history of disease (P = 0.02) (OR = 3.27, 95% CI, 1.20-8.87); and this risk was 1.41 times higher in patients with more family members (P = 0.04) (OR = 1.41, 95% CI, 1.01-1.97). Furthermore, 81 (20.3%) patients had spread the virus to others in their households and disregarded hygiene guidelines such as washing hands, keeping social distancing, and wearing face masks after discharge. In addition, family members of these patients were 16.37 times more likely to be infected than patients who followed the protocols (P ≤ 0.001) (OR = 16.37, 95% CI, 9.10-29.45). CONCLUSION: Since our findings showed that mortality rate is high in the first week after patients' referral to the emergency departments, the health status of infected people should be carefully monitored daily in this period.