Abstract
The object of this study is to investigate the nurisng goal for the elderly patients who have diabetes with onset at their old age, in terms of their self-care behavior and the quality of life.
The interview was conducted to assess the following point: 1) their self-care mostly concerned with diet, 2) their perception of self-care, 3) influence of the illness, 4) self-esteem, and 5) their subjective well-being. The subjects consisted of 107 elders who had diabetes. Two findings were obtained.
The first findings are about the feature of self-care behavior of these subjects: (1) Most patients approved the importance of diet, and did as well as they could, but the strategy was not strict; they did only weigh rice. (2) Strongest restriction because of diabetes they perceived was dietary restriction, however most of the subjects did not perceive social restriction. The second finding is that the positive self-care behavior of diabetes is closely related with high QOL.
We concluded that they could improve their notion of subjective well-being through self-care and that we could help them raising their QOL by admittingtheir effort of self-care and by supporting them. Which is the nursing goal for elderly diabetics.
