Li TJ, Zhou J, Ma JJ, Luo HY, Ye XM. What are the self-management experiences of the elderly with diabetes? A systematic review of qualitative research. World J Clin Cases 2022; 10(4): 1226-1241 [PMID: 35211556 DOI: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i4.1226]
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
World J Clin Cases. Feb 6, 2022; 10(4): 1226-1241 Published online Feb 6, 2022. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v10.i4.1226
What are the self-management experiences of the elderly with diabetes? A systematic review of qualitative research
Ting-Jun Li, Jie Zhou, Juan-Juan Ma, Hui-Yan Luo, Xiao-Mei Ye
Ting-Jun Li, Department of Nursing, The Second People's Hospital of Futian District Shenzhen, Shenzhen 518049, Guangdong Province, China
Jie Zhou, Juan-Juan Ma, Department of Nursing, Shenzhen Shekou People’s Hospital, Shenzhen 518067, Guangdong Province, China
Hui-Yan Luo, Department of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Shenzhen People's Hospital, Shenzhen 518000, Guangdong Province, China
Xiao-Mei Ye, Intensive Care Unit, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou Medical University, Guangzhou 510220, Guangdong Province, China
Author contributions: Li TJ was responsible for the overall design of the study, conducted the literature search and data collection; Ma JJ extracted the data, undertook the quality assessment, and drafted the manuscript; Ye XM and Zhou J screened the titles/abstracts and full text of studies; Luo HY wrote the first draft; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that we have no competing interests.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklis.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Received: August 10, 2021 Peer-review started: August 10, 2021 First decision: September 5, 2021 Revised: October 21, 2021 Accepted: December 28, 2021 Article in press: December 28, 2021 Published online: February 6, 2022 Processing time: 166 Days and 16.3 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
The number of elderly individuals with diabetes is dramatically increasing. Diabetes is a long-term condition and a noncommunicable disease and requires intensive daily self-management. Understanding of self-management from the patients’ perspectives is important to nurses, healthcare providers, and researchers and benefits people by improving their self-management skills.
AIM
To examine and synthesize qualitative studies that explore the experiences of elderly people in self-managing diabetes.
METHODS
Electronic databases were searched, including MEDLINE, CINAH, PsycINFO, PubMed, CNKI, and WANFADATA. Relevant research was identified by manually searching reference lists and gray literature. Only English and Chinese publications were included. The Critical Appraisal Skills Program was used to assess the quality of the research. The Confidence in the Evidence from Reviews of Qualitative research approach was used to assess the confidence of the findings.
RESULTS
A total of 10 qualitative studies were included, and content analysis was performed. Five themes were identified: The need for knowledge about diabetes care, support systems, functional decline, attitudes toward diabetes, and healthy lifestyle challenges.
CONCLUSION
This present review provides a deep and broad understanding of the experiences in the self-management of diabetes and can be valuable to nursing practice and provide recommendations for future research.
Core Tip: In the establishment of strategies that enable the elderly to self-manage diabetes, the particularities of this group need to be addressed. The self-management experiences of the elderly refer to information, social support, physical, attitude, and lifestyle dimensions. To identify the facilitators and barriers of self-management, nurses, healthcare providers, and researchers can develop self-management and education programs for this population.
