The Psychological Impact Of Diabetes : A Practical Guide For The Nurse Practitioner

Diabetes, Diabetes Mellitus, is a chronic illness this means that it has no cure and the symptoms persist over a long period of time. This illness is a result of an imbalance of hormones, insulin, produced in the pancreas. Insulin plays an important role in how the body uses food. Insulin enables the cells in the bloodstream to absorb and use glucose for fuel. If the pancreas produces too little or no insulin or if the insulin doesn’t work properly the person may become diabetic. Therefore, diabetics are not able to properly convert food into fuels needed by the body to function, which can seriously lead to physical consequences.

Diabetes is a serious medical condition that can also be a risk factor for the development of many different diseases and conditions including dementia, heart disease, and CVA. Thus, effective management of diabetes is very important. Patient compliance can be difficult to achieve if the person affected with diabetes is not educated about the illness or treatment, has not fully accepted the diagnosis or its severity, will not change habits or believes that the prescribed treatment regime is too difficult or ineffective, has cultural beliefs conflicting with the treatment regime, experiences stressful events, lacks social support, or suffers from psychiatric issues unrelated to diabetes (Gerard, Griffin, & Fitzpatrick, 2010). As one may expect, adequate education programs are essential tools when dealing with diabetics. Solid education will provide the patient with information as well as teaching the necessary skills to manage the disorder. The primary focus of any diabetes education program must be to empower patients as a part of the multidisciplinary team. This team should be focused at integrating diabetes into the lives of the patients and this focus should be based on the decisions made by the patient, otherwise the treatment plan can be looked on as forced (Gerald et al., 2010). Every patient stricken with diabetes has the right to benefit from an education program of this type. First, basic education and facts should be administered directly following the diagnosis of

Living with Long Term Conditions can be challenging therefore the people who have been identified for the above mentioned conditions need to have more information, support and confidence in their self which will help them to take control of their condition. Now I would like to focus my writing on one of the Long Term Conditions which is Diabetes. People with long term conditions will often feel the impact on their mental health and well being, but depending on the condition type these psychological effects and its symptoms can be different between person to person. People with the long term conditions are in the first line in developing the mental health problems than the other people. There are many factors which can be considered as triggers for the long term conditions such as depression and anxiety, but most of the people get triggered for mental health problems by knowing that they have to live with that long term condition for their entire life. The most common type of psychological effect is depression which is two, three times more in the people who have been identified as

Diabetes has become an epidemic in today’s society. Diabetes affects almost every system in the body, and with an estimated 346 million people in the world with diabetes, healthcare has been heavily affected by the disease (Ramasamy, Shrivastava, P., & Shrivastava, S., 2013). One of the biggest issues for healthcare workers when it comes to diabetes, is that it is such a complicated disease. With so many different systems being affected, medical professionals have had to learn how the disease process works, what causes diabetes to work through the systems, and the best treatments to address all these issues. Through much research, the healthcare system has grown very knowledgeable on diabetes. One important aspect of treating diabetes has been in the introduction of diabetic education. In the past, nurses and dieticians had been responsible for educating patients on diabetes, but now that role is also extended to other people in the healthcare team, including the patient (Tomky, 2013). In fact, patients taking an active role in the education process, including learning to self-care has now become a priority in diabetes treatment. The following paper will discuss diabetic education, the importance of self-care and how this affects a patient’s compliance.

Diabetes care basically includes a patient’s lifestyle, treatment adherence, and other health related behaviors (Pyrot et al 2006). The daily management of diabetes can be a very challenging and daunting task. Individuals with diabetes are charged with making healthy decisions about regulating their food regimen, exercise, closely monitoring their blood glucose, and self administering their medications (Sabourin & Pursley 2013). A patient’s perspective on how they view diabetes will impact how well they may psychologically adjust to the chronic illness which impacts their emotional distress level (Gois, Ferro, Santos, Sousa, Oukinin, Carmo, & Barbosa 2012). A negative perspective could increase their distress level and make them more susceptible to developing and/ or worsening depressive symptoms. Moreover, how accurately patients are able to self-disclose to their health care providers impacts their treatment. Diabetes treatment relies heavily on self-care activities, which are monitored indirectly by healthcare providers based on patient self-report. Inaccurate self-reports may limit a healthcare provider’s ability to accurately assess the status of a patient and make appropriate treatment recommendations (Gonzalz & Scheider

Lack of health insurance is a barrier to medical care, which may increase the risk of diabetes complications and costs. The objective of this study was to assess the potential of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 to improve diabetes care through increased health care access by comparing health care and health outcomes of insured and uninsured people with diabetes. Uninsured adults with diabetes had less access to health care and lower levels of preventive care, health care use, and expenditures than insured adults. To the extent that the ACA increases access and coverage, uninsured people with diabetes are likely to significantly increase their health care use, which may lead to reduce incidence of diabetes. Mental Health issues that can develop with people with diabetes are diabetes distress, anger, denial and depression.

Whereas Molly might have inherited type 2 diabetes from her parents, the development of this illness is also influenced by lifestyle choices (NHS choices 2013). Psychologically, Molly is at the risk of suffering from postnatal depression and stress due to physical demands of work and taking care of her family. This can consequently lead to mental illnesses (Hobart and Frankel 2009). Psychological illnesses can affect Molly’s ability to self-manage her blood glucose. Apart from this, psychological instability can cause Molly to lose control of her diabetes with fatal consequences (NHS choices 2013).

Diabetes is a chronic illness that requires continuous medical care and patient self-management education to prevent acute complications and to reduce the risk of long-term complications[ ].

Diabetic patients will be invited to participate in the voluntary study based on the results of the PHQ-9 depression section of the patient stress questionnaire, a standard measurement tool utilized at the clinic. Patients that agree to participate in the study will be administered the Diabetes Distress Scale (DDS), also a standard measurement tool utilized at the clinic. The co-investigator and external researcher will be responsible for consenting participants. The co-investigator and external researcher coordinate consent at the Matthews Free Medical Clinic or a designated off-site location. Individuals whose primary language is Spanish will be provided a translated written consent for participants who are Non-English speaking.

Since diabetes is a chronic disease, it is vital that diabetic patients make a multitude of daily self-management decisions and to perform complex care activities (Powers et al., 2015). Diabetes self-management education and support provides the foundation to help people with diabetes to navigate these decisions and activities and has been shown to improve health outcomes. The initial diagnosis of diabetes is considered a critical time to provide diabetes education and support. The diagnosis of diabetes is often overwhelming to the patient and this strong emotional response can be a significant

This is a diabetes case study of Mr. Charles D., a 45-year old male who is experiencing classic symptoms of hyperglycaemia. Recently divorced and living alone in a new home, Charles has complained of recent weight loss, excessive thirst, and frequent urination. He is a busy CEO for a major technological company. This case study for Charles will educate him as to what are the causes of diabetes: explain the presenting signs and symptoms emphasize the psycho-social impact to his amended life, and instruct him in the economic impact that he and millions share.

The American Heritage Dictionary definition of diabetes is "a chronic disease of pancreatic origin, marked by insulin deficiency, excess sugar in the blood and urine, weakness, and emaciation." When you have diabetes, your body cannot use the food that you eat in the proper way. In a person without diabetes, when he or she eats, the food is broken down into blood glucose or blood sugar. After the food is in the form of glucose, the glucose is carried to all the cells of the body for energy. In order for the cells to receive the glucose, a hormone made in the islet or B-cells of the pancreas called insulin acts a receptor on the cell membrane to let the glucose enter inside the cells. In contrast, in people with diabetes, the body does not

In edition to acute complications of short term elevations of glucose, long term elevations of blood glucose lead to severe complications; microvascular damage resulting in heart attacks, strokes and gangrene, microvascular damage resulting in kidney damage and blindness due to retinopathy (peyrot 1999). For this reason the main goal of diabetes treatment is to maintain blood glucose as close to normal as possible. Medication is the theme of treating disease based on the biomedical outlook that disease is biological. Unfortunately, the biomedical model of medicine fails to take into consideration the social and psychological factors that play a role in the treatment of this illness. The biomedical approach fails to consider the psychologic and behavioral process involved in stress and coping with glucose control, as well as the interaction between biological and psychosocial factors and how this affects patient coherence with treatment. Studies have established that many people diagnosed with diabetes have difficulty in adapting to biomedical therapy; in order to improve health outcomes it is important to address the psychological and physical stresses of diabetes with specific adaptive and coping strategies (awah).

Diabetes is associated with wide range of complications such as chronic renal failure, blindness, amputations, heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and neuropathy (Alotabi, A., et al., 2016). There is no known cure for diabetes, but the disease can be controlled through health management that includes multiple perspectives of care such as medications, blood glucose monitoring, diet, nutrition, screening for long-term complications and regular physical activity (Alotabi, A., et al., 2016). Managing diabetes may be complicated and requires the knowledge and skills of both healthcare providers and the clients. Studies have shown that to prevent or delay diabetic complications due to diabetes, counseling and other lifestyle interventions are the effective therapy. Even with many policies set up for diabetes, 8.1 million Americans are undiagnosed with diabetes mellitus, and approximately 86 million Americans ages 20 and older have blood glucose levels that considerably increase their risk of developing Diabetes Mellitus in the next several years (CDC, 2015). For diabetes care to be successful there needs to be a good understanding of the disease and management by both patients and healthcare providers,

Diabetes is a major problem in our society today. Many people have heard about the disease; however, they do not know too much about its complications. Diabetes is a chronic, progressive and lifelong condition that affects the body’s ability to use the energy found in food (WebMD, 2016). Many new cases are confirmed every year and unfortunately, many go undiagnosed for years. Diabetes is a serious disease and need to be taking seriously. The disease can lead to many other health problems such as blindness, nerve damage and kidney diseases. The more the community understand and made aware of the seriousness of the disease, the better it can be control and or prevented.