WELLNESS WEDNESDAY..

The Challenge of Diabetes Self-Management Counseling.

Diabetes self-management refers to the full range of activities (or“behaviors”) in which patients care for their illness and promote their health.

The three broad self-management tasks include - 1)managing the disease (taking medications, following a diet, engaging in physical activity, self-monitoring); 2) maintaining one's daily life while living with chronic illness; and 3) dealing with emotional aspects of the disease, such as anger, fear, frustration, and depression.

There is consensus on the key preconditions for effective diabetes self-management. These include - 1) sufficient knowledge of the condition and its treatment; 2) skills to manage the condition and to maintain functioning (ability to identify problems, barriers, and supports and to generate solutions); 3) internal, or autonomous, motivation (belief in treatment effectiveness and its relevance to one's goals, values,and priorities); 4) confidence in one's ability to successfully execute specific tasks(self-efficacy); 5) adequate environmental support to initiate and sustain behavioral changes (assistance to overcome obstacles, reminders, encouragement, and support from valued people at appropriate times and places); and 6)effective affect management (coping with possible depression and other emotional responses to living...