Structural model of self-care agency in patients with diabetes: A path analysis of the Instrument of Diabetes Self-Care Agency and body self-awareness

Aim: The aim of this study was to examine a causal model of self-care agency by exploring the relationship between the structure of "body self-awareness" and the structure of the Instrument of Diabetes Self-Care Agency (IDSCA).

Methods: The participants were 353 patients with diabetes. The internal consistency of the six items for body self-awareness was examined by calculating the factor structure using principal factor analysis and Cronbach's alpha. In order to examine the relationship between the seven factors in the IDSCA, a path analysis was conducted.

Results: With regard to the factor structure, the factor loading of these five items was 0.511-0.743 (α = 0.739). In the path analysis, "body self-awareness" was influenced by the "ability to acquire knowledge" and had a direct effect (0.33) on the "motivation to self-manage", while "motivation to self-manage" had an effect (-0.32) on the "ability to self-manage". The Goodness-of-Fit Index was 0.974.

Conclusion: "Body self-awareness" plays a part in the self-care operation process and serves as an intermediary factor to enable the performance of self-care operations by making the most use of self-care agency. Moreover, striking a proper balance between self-management that is focused on the treatment of diabetes and a person's ability for self-management of diabetes was found to be important.