• Korean Journal of Community Nutrition
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• v.19 no.3
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• pp.241-249
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• 2014

Objectives: This study was to determine diabetes fatalism of diabetic patients with and without diabetic foot and its association with lifestyle, diet, and self-care. Methods: The subjects were diabetic patients with (male/female 48/21) and without diabetic foot (male/female 33/26). We administered the questionnaires which were designed to determine diabetes fatalism, lifestyle, diet, and self-care. Diabetes fatalism was determined by Diabetes fatalism scale (DFS), which consisted of total 12 items in three subscales namely, emotional stress, religiou spiritual coping, and perceived self-efficacy. Results: The patients with diabetic foot had undesirable diets more frequently (1.37 and 0.91 days/week respectively) and their desirable diets (2.74 and 3.61 days/week respectively) and foot care (4.61 and 5.53 days/week respectively) were less frequent than those without diabetic foot (p < 0.05). An item analysis of the 12 DFS items revealed a Chronbach' ${\alpha}$ of 0.614 and 0.869, respectively in diabetic patients with and without diabetic foot. Perceived self-efficacy related DFS of subjects without diabetic foot was positively associated with smoking (r=0.350, p<0.01), undesirable diet (r=0.295, p<0.05), and drinking (r=0.257, p<0.05), while its negative association with exercise (r=-0.224, p<0.088) and foot care (r=-0.247, p<0.059) did not reach to statistical significance. Conclusions: This work was the first study reporting the potential usefulness of DFS, especially perceived self-efficacy related subscale as a predictor of lifestyle, diet and self-care on the Korean diabetic patients, at least those without severe diabetic foot to screen those who should be the first target for diabetes education.