Older Adults' Fears About Diabetes: Using Common Sense Models of Disease to Understand Fear Origins and Implications for Self-Management

摘要

This study examines older adults' fears of diabetes complications and their effects on self-management practices. Existing models of diabetes self-management posit that patients' actions are grounded in disease beliefs and experience, but there is little supporting evidence. In-depth qualitative interviews were conducted with a community-based sample of 74 African American, American Indian, and White older adults with diabetes.Analysis uses Leventhal's Common Sense Model of Diabetes to link fears to early experience and current self-management. Sixty-three participants identify fears focused on complications that could limit carrying out normal activities: amputation, blindness, low blood glucose and coma, and disease progression to insulin use and dialysis. Most focus self-management on actions to prevent specific complications, rather than on managing the disease as a whole.