The Relation between Social Support and Self-efficacy and Their Effects on Hashimoto Diseased Patients Living at Home

Abstract

This investigation was carried out to clarify the relation between social support and self-efficacy and personal factors such as age, family structure; occupational status and symptoms for Hashimoto diseased patients living at home. The subjects of 225 patients were selected from 4 towns in Urakawa health center and 139 complete answers targeted in this analysis. The mean age was 54.7 years old and the female percentage was 92.8%. In this study, both social support and self-efficacy variations were analyzed according to Kin's scales (1996). The first scale is based on social support provided by emotional support in daily life and behavioral support for disease. The second self-efficacy scale is based on active coping behavior with disease and controllability for heath. The followings were found, 1. Only social support was significantly affected by personal factors such as age, family structure, and symptoms, but self-efficacy has no effect on all the personal factors including sex, occupational status, duration of the disease, and the treatment condition. A significant difference was fond in age, symptoms, and the family structure of behavioral support for disease. Subjects within 35 to 49 years of age, singles and no symptoms were found to be low degree in behavioral support for disease. The occupational status has significant difference in active coping behavior with disease. The symptoms and sex have significant difference in controllability for heath. 2. There was a high correlation between social support and self-efficacy. In this study, I would like to suggest the following conclusions, 1) The necessity of nursing the Hashimoto diseased patients living at home and improving the self-efficacy, especially symptoms and employed in the community. 2) An essential progressive social support such as selfhelp group activities to improve their health.