Progress in Health Goals and Treatment Recommendations of Diabetes Mellitus Patients

The current guidelines for improving the care of people with type 2 diabetes (diabetes mellitus) suggest that doctors should also inform patients about the necessity of achieving health-related diabetes goals. A patient´s ability to successfully achieve health-related goals and treatment recommendations could improve their health and decrease the risk of diabetes-related complications. The present study aims to explore if the selected goal/recommendation characteristics (motivation, self-efficacy, effort, and challenge) support the progress in health-related goals and recommendations. A study was performed with 120 patients diagnosed with type 2 diabetes from the Centre for Diabetes Treatment at the L. Pasteur University Hospital in Košice, Slovakia. The participants responded to questions about health goals, treatment recommendations and obstacles with items assessing motivation, effort, challenges, self-efficacy, and progress. The results showed that patients with diabetes were more likely to make successful progress when health-goals were autonomous and recommendations were autonomous or controlled motivated. There was a significant effect of patients’ effort and efficacy on progress in both goals and recommendations. With increasing years of diabetes, the recommendations and goals’ autonomous motivation significantly decreased while recommendation effort increased. Goals and recommendation challenge did not predict progress. The results suggest that interventions should focus on encouraging want-to motivation, self-efficacy and professionals evaluate patients’ effort.