Study on Factors That Promote or Inhibit People, Who Were Found to Be Possibly Diabetic, from Consulting Doctors

Abstract

This study clarifies promoting factors and inhibiting factors for people to consult doctors after they were found in a health examination to be possibly diabetic. Ten patients who were found in the health examination to be possibly diabetic were interviewed in a semi-structured way and analyzed qualitatively. As a result, the following four categories of the promoting factors were identified : “Being worried about one’s own health because of age or clinical history,” “recognizing the necessity of consulting a doctor by self-assessment of the result of the health examination or by advices from others,” “being recommended by the workplace or local government,” and “few restrictions in consulting a doctor.” In addition, the following four categories of the inhibiting factors were identified : “Having no subjective symptom or recognizing no risk of disease,” “believing that I can manage the necessity of further detailed examination,” “not understanding the meaning of the result of the health examination or not knowing where to consult,” “feeling like a burden or resistance to consulting a doctor.” These results indicated that the result of the health examination on the necessity of further detailed examination could not always make the patients fully recognize the necessity and that it was important for nurses to intervene in the health examination and help the patients correctly understand the result of the health examination.