The Psychology and Epidemiological Surveillance of Diabetes Mellitus: A Prospective of Self-Management

The lack of research about health literacy and self-management of diabetes from the perspective of the diabetic makes it difficult for people suffering from this chronic illness to make illness-management decisions. The purpose of this research is to look for themes in self-management that reveal possible pathways for diabetics to discover how to self-manage diabetes and improve health-literacy. The actual attitudes and experiences of diabetics will contribute to the body of knowledge to solve this research problem. There are over 86,700,000 Web sites and pages, thousands of books, on the Internet listing the word diabetes. All of this information can be confusing for people with diabetes and limited health literacy. The goal of this researcher was to learn about health-literacy and the self-management of diabetes from the perspective of the diabetic, to provide qualitative evidence that the association of health-literacy with skillful self-management behavior is a commodity of self-efficacy that cannot be purchased. Using thematic analysis in a generic, qualitative inquiry, the researcher examined viewpoints, thoughts, and reflections, to understand diabetes and self-management.

The author is a Insulin Dependent Diabetic 40 years and teaches psychology in Dallas, TX. He is interested in helping others cope with the chronic illness of Diabetes Mellitus.