Relationship between Health-Promoting Behaviors and Family Perceived Social Support in Type 2 Diabetes Patients

Evaluating diabetics’ health-promoting behaviors is an essential part of nursing care. This study aimed to examine the relationship between health-promoting behaviors and perceived social support from the family in patients with type 2 diabetes.
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This was a descriptive cross-sectional study. The data were collected from a foundation university hospital in Tabriz, Iran. The sample consisted of 183 type 2 diabetes patients. Data were collected using the Perceived Social Support from Family and Health-Promoting Behaviors scales.

The average score of social support was 15.07±6.74 (range: 0 to 20), and the average score of health-promoting behaviors was 49.62±17.74 (range: 0 to 112). There was a significant and positive correlation between the scores of health-promoting behaviors and perceived social support (r=0.28, p<0.001). We predicted the changes in health-promoting behaviors based on the regression analysis of the changes in perceived social support from the family (B=0.563).

Family social support affects health-promoting behaviors in type 2 diabetes patients, and should be considered during interventions to improve health-promoting behaviors by nurses and other healthcare providers. We suggest other descriptive correlational studies with a higher sample size and interventional studies on this subject.