Abstract

Diabetes Mellitus (DM) is a chronic disease with increase morbidity and mortality. It could be associated with significant adverse outcomes including poor health related quality of life. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has a large share of the morbidity and mortality of DM of which larger percentage of the population (both DM 1 and 2) remain undiagnosed. Several psychosocial factors have been found to be associated with better health related quality of life among Diabetes Mellitus (DM) patients; however there is a dearth of local research work on the psychosocial predictors of health related quality of life among this group of persons. This study examined the psychosocial (emotional distress, self-efficacy, perceived social support and self-management) of health related quality of life among type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus patient in Federal Medical Centre, Abeokuta, Ogun State, Nigeria. An exposfacto design was utilized among a total of 85 adult patients with type 1 and 2 diabetes mellitus. The study utilized the purposive sampling technique. A questionnaire focusing on medical and socio-demographic profile, emotional distress (r=0.91), self-efficacy (r=0.93), perceived social support (r=0.63), self-management (r=0.63) and health related quality of life (r=0.35) was administered to the participants. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, correlation analysis, t- test and regression analysis at 0.05 levels of significance. Three hypotheses were tested. The results revealed that emotional distress, self-efficacy, perceived social support and self-management jointly predicted health related quality of life (R²=0.24; F=6.34; p<0.01). Demographic and medical factors revealed a joint prediction on health related quality of life (R²=0.19; F=2.23; p<0.05). Also, the result also revealed type 2 DM patient had a better health related quality of life than their counterpart (t= -2.00; df=83; p<0.05). Emotional distress and selfefficacy positively correlated with health related quality of life of respondents. Hence, Psychologist and other medical practitioners should utilize this resource by advocating for an improvement of self-efficacy in management plans of DM patients to enhance their health related quality of life.

Keywords: Health related quality of life; Emotional distress; Selfefficacy;Perceived social support; Diabetes Mellitus