effects of modified stretching exercises on fatigue intensity in patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomized clinical trial

Background: patients with type 2 diabetes suffer from fatigue and disease complications. exercise is one of the non-medicinal methods, which is also affordable and can be done at any time and place. objectives: this study aimed to determine the effects of modified stretching exercise on fatigue intensity in patients with type 2 diabetes. methods: in the present clinical trial study, the research population consisted of all patients with type 2 diabetes in the internal clinic of shahid fayaz-bakhsh hospital, tehran, in 2021. a total number of 50 eligible patients with type 2 diabetes were selected by non-randomized sampling method. the selected participants were randomly divided into two groups: experiment (25 people) and control (25 people). in the experimental group, training was held in 12 sessions. a demographic checklist and the multidimensional fatigue inventory (mfi) were used to collect data before and after the intervention. the collected data were analyzed through descriptive statistics and paired t-test, chi-square, and independent t-test. results: before the intervention, there was no statistically significant difference in the overall scores of fatigue and its dimensions between the experimental and control groups (p > 0.05). after completing the interventions, a statistically significant difference was observed in the mean scores of fatigue and its dimensions between the experimental and control groups (p < 0.001). conclusions: modified stretching exercises can improve the severity of fatigue in patients with type 2 diabetes. we suggest that healthcare providers use this stretching exercise to improve fatigue in diabetic patients.