determinants of self-care behaviors in diabetic patients in yazd: an application of the protection motivation theory

Background: diabetes is an increasingly important public health concern. self-care behaviors should beimproved to help diabetic patients better control the disease, highlighting the importance of understandingthe factors that affect a diabetic patient’s self-care behaviors. therefore, the goal of the present study was todetermine factors related to self-care behaviors in patients with type 2 diabetes (t2d) using the protectionmotivation theory (pmt).methods: in general, 160 type 2 diabetic patients referring to yazd diabetes research center wererandomly selected and included in this analytical cross-sectional study. the data were gathered by areliable and valid questionnaire, which is a summary of a multi-question questionnaire. it included pmtconstructs and demographic information through interviewing the patients. finally, data were analyzedusing t test, anova, linear regression, and pearson correlation tests.results: the mean age of the patients and the mean self-care behaviors were 55.87 ± 9.62 years and37.56 ± 12.94, respectively. in the regression model, perceived susceptibility (β = 0.294, p < 0.001) andprotection motivation (β = 0.247, p = 0.003) were significant predictors of diabetes self-care behaviors. thismodel was able to explain 20% of the variance of these behaviors.conclusion: pmt is effective in recognizing the determinants of diabetes self-care behaviors; therefore,to increase patients’ motivation to adopt diabetes self-care behaviors, a framework similar to this theorycan be used to design educational programs. it is suggested that other studies in the field of self-carebe conducted with other educational models in different populations of patients, and their results becompared accordingly.