Abstract

ABSTRACT:
Introduction
Type 2 diabetes is characterised by relative insulin deficiency caused by pancreatic β-cell dysfunction and insulin resistance in target organs.
The Patient Activation Measure is a valid, highly reliable, uni-dimensional, probabilistic Guttman-like scale that reflects a developmental model of activation. Activation appears to involve four stages: (1) believing the patient role is important, (2) having the confidence and knowledge necessary to take action, (3) actually taking action to maintain and improve one’s health, and (4) staying the course even under stress. The measure has good psychometric properties indicating that it can be used at the individual patient level to tailor intervention and assess changes.
Aim: To investigate whether the level of patient activation differs between men and women with T2DM.
Materials and methods:
It is a cross-sectional study involving all the patients with T2DM from a tertiary care hospital. The following data were extracted: age, gender, BMI, smoking status, HbA1c, use of glucose lowering medication, and the presence of complications.
In this study the Dutch version of the PAM was used which was validated by NIVEL (Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research). The questionnaire consists of 13 items which measure knowledge, skills, confidence, and behaviours needed for self management. The association between gender and patient activation was investigated with multivariate linear regression using the continuous PAM score.
Results: 54.5% of the patients were male and 45.5% were female. Mean age was 61.54 (SD: 12.037) years in men and 57.41 (SD: 12.583) years in women, who were significantly older than women (𝑝 < 0.019).Men smoked more frequently and they had also more often complications compared to women. The BMI was slightly higher in women. In our study we have found that there is stastically significant difference between patient activation in men and women(p-0.0006).
Conclusion: Patient activation is more in male compared to female. Hence healthy behaviours should be educated for diabetic patients to reduce complications and improve their quality of life and activation.

Key words: Key words: PAM-patient activation measures; Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus, BMI