the factors related to self-treatment behaviors among type 2 diabetic patients: application of the theory of planned behavior

Background: diabetes is the most common and severe metabolic disease in human. self-treatment behaviors are common problems among diabetic patients.aim: the present study was conducted with aim to identify the factors related to self-treatment behaviors among type 2 diabetic patients based on the theory of planned behavior (tpb). method: this cross-sectional study was carried out on 381 diabetic patients referred to hamadan diabetes research center in 2019, which were recruited with a simple sampling method. the participants completed a self-administered questionnaire, including demographic characteristics and tpb constructs. data were analyzed by spss software (version 18) and descriptive statistics, one-way anova, independent t-test, and linear regression. p<0.05 was considered statistically significant. results: the mean age of the participants was 55.69±11.45 and 68.2% of the patients were male. also, 22.3% of participants did not refer to a specific physician to monitor the diabetes treatment. significant differences were found in the mean score of self-treatment behaviors related to gender, dwelling, and having a specific physician (p<0.05). according to the result, the tpb construct explained 16% of the variance in the frequency of self-treatment behaviors. attitude (β=0.227) and perceived behavior control (β=-0.110) were the best significant predictors of behavioral intention (p<0.05). implications for practice: the findings obtained in the present study suggest that applying tpb would be an efficient tool for predicting self-treatment behaviors among diabetic patients.