The self-care dilemma of type 2 diabetic patients: The mechanism of self-regulation resource depletion

• Published in: PloS one Vol. 13; no. 12; p. e0208690
• Main Authors: Wang, Ligang, Yu, Yan, Tao, Ting, Zhang, Jingyi, Gao, Wenbin
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Public Library of Science 06-12-2018; Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subjects: Activities of daily living; Automatic control; Behavior; Biology and Life Sciences; Care and treatment; Correlation analysis; Depletion; Diabetes; Diabetes mellitus; Diabetes mellitus (non-insulin dependent); Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 - psychology; Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 - rehabilitation; Diabetes therapy; Diabetic retinopathy; Diabetics; Diet; Executive Function; Fatigue; Fatigue failure; Feeding Behavior; Female; Glucose; Goals; Humans; Hyperglycemia; Incompatibility; Industry self regulation; Insulin; Laboratories; Male; Management; Medical law; Medical Records; Medical research; Medicine and Health Sciences; Mental Fatigue; Mental health; Middle Aged; Patients; Random Allocation; Reaction time; Reaction time task; Resource depletion; Self Care; Self care (Health); Self control; Self-Control - psychology; Social psychology; Social Sciences; Spatial Behavior; Studies; Type 2 diabetes; Beijing China; China
• ISSN: 1932-6203; 1932-6203
• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0208690

Self-care is important for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) patients' disease prognosis, but there is a common phenomenon of self-regulation failure in T2DMs. In order to figure this problem out, the current study explored the interaction between self-regulation resource depletion and diabetes self-care based on the limited resource model of self-regulation. 104 patients were surveyed using the Self-Regulatory Fatigue Scale (SRF-S) and the Diabetes Self-care Scale (DSCS) in study 1. Study 2 recruited 30 T2DM patients and 30 healthy controls, and used a sequential-task paradigm to test the effect of self-regulation resource depletion on them. Participants in study 3 were 60 T2DM patients under different levels of self-regulation resource depletion manipulation, and their self-regulation performance was recorded and compared. Study 1 indicated that the correlation between self-regulation resource depletion and exercise and diet was significant and negative, suggesting that patients with greater self-regulation resource depletion performed poorly in exercise and diet. In Study 2, T2DM patients exhibited a poorer performance on the Spatial Incompatibility Task than the participants in the control group, suggesting that their self-regulation resource was insufficient. Study 3 indicated that there was no difference in Spatial Incompatibility Task performance, reaction time or error number among patients who were requested to complete a dietary record for one week and patients who were only requested to record eating times. This research demonstrated that low levels of diabetes self-care execution was associated with patients' deficiency in self-regulatory resource, and self-care as a series of goal-directed behaviors consumed patients' self-regulatory resources before these behaviors became a habit.