Factors related to self-care activities adherence of older adults with diabetes

Diabetes mellitus treatment is complex and involves several activities. Its goal is to control the disease and prevent complications. The success of this treatment includes adherence to self-care. This study aimed at identifying factors related to self-care activities adherence in community older adults with diabetes. Cross-sectional, observational and analytical study with a quantitative approach to data, conducted with 140 older people. We used the following instruments: Mini-Mental State Examination for cognitive assessment, socio-demographic and clinical characterization instrument, Brazilian Functional and Multidimensional Assessment Questionnaire to verify the self-reported morbidities, Abbreviated Geriatric Depression Scale to investigate the presence of depressive symptoms and Diabetes Self-Care Activities Questionnaire to assess activities adherence related to self-management of people with diabetes. The results of this study indicated that self-care activities with higher adherence were: “taking the indicated number of diabetes pills” (6.6 ± 1.2), “taking insulin injections as recommended” (6.2 ± 2.0), “drying the spaces between the toes after wash them” (4.6 ± 3.2) and “following a healthy diet” (4.5 ± 2.7). The self-care activities with smallest adherence were: “performing specific physical activities (walking, swimming, etc.)” (0.9 ± 1.9), “performing physical activities for at least 30 minutes” (1.2 ± 2.2), “evaluation of blood sugar as times as recommended” (1.2 ± 2.3), “sweets intake” (1.3 ± 1.7) and “evaluation of blood sugar” (1.4 ± 2.3). Regarding smoking, 88.6% were not smokers. Factors related to self-care measures were: gender, indicating greater adherence of women, education level, and number of morbidities, suggesting that adherence to the feet care domain is directly proportional to education and number of morbidities. However, this same domain was inversely proportional to depression, indicating that there was greater adherence in those people without depressive symptoms. The factors associated with the adherence to self-care activities observed in this research contributed to the planning of strategies to prevent diabetes mellitus complications and promote improvements in the life and health of the older adults in the community.