Investigating the role of difficulty in emotion regulation, Distress Tolerance and perceived stress in predicting treatment adherence in patients with type 2 diabetes

Improving patients' adherence with treatment recommendations is always one of the concerns of health professionals. Therefore, the present study was conducted with the aim of investigating the role of difficulty in emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and perceived stress in predicting treatment adherence in type 2 diabetes patients.

The method of this research is descriptive-correlation. The statistical population of this research included all patients with diabetes referred to Sanandaj health centers in 2022. For this purpose, 230 of these people were selected by convenience sampling method and responded to the scale of difficulty in emotional regulation, the scale of distress tolerance, the scale of perceived stress and the scale of adherence to treatment. After collecting the questionnaires, the collected data were analyzed using Pearson's correlation coefficient and multiple regression analysis.

The results showed that there is a negative and significant relationship between difficulty in emotional regulation and perceived stress with adherence to treatment (P<0.01). There is a positive and significant relationship between distress tolerance and adherence to treatment (P<0.01). The results of multiple regression analysis also revealed that 69.6% of the variance in adherence to treatment is explained by difficulty in regulating emotions, distress tolerance and perceived stress.

According to the results, in medical centers and hospitals, special attention should be paid to treatments based on emotion regulation and stress reduction treatments based on mindfulness in patients with type 2 diabetes. Because these therapeutic interventions reduce psychological problems such as depression, obsession, anxiety and stress, and this, in turn, can lead to adherence to drug treatments, a healthier lifestyle, and as a result, blood sugar control in patients with diabetes.