Relationship between family support and quality of life of type-2 diabetes mellitus patients attending family medicine clinic, federal medical centre, Ido–Ekiti.

Abstract

Background: Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease with increase morbidity and mortality. It could be associated with significant adverse outcomes including poor quality of life. In Sub-Saharan Africa, Nigeria has a large share of the morbidity and mortality of DM. Several factors have been found to be associated with better quality of life among diabetes mellitus (DM) patients. There is a dearth of local research work on the relationship of family support and quality of life of this group of patients.
Objective: This study sought to determine the relationship between family support and quality of life of type 2 diabetes mellitus patients attending family medicine clinic, Federal Medical Centre, Ido-Ekiti, Ekiti State, Nigeria.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study of 250 adult patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus was carried out over twenty (20) weeks. Respondents' family support was measured using Perceived Social Support – Family Scale {PSS- Fa}, while their quality of life was measured using the short version of the World Health Organization quality of life assessment tool (WHOQOL-BREF).
Results: The level of family support was significantly associated with quality of life at p-value less than 0.001. Majority [n = 104 (59.8%)] of the respondents who reported having strong family support had fair quality of life. Also, a significant percentage (85.7%) of all respondents who had good quality of life were found to have strong family support. The converse was true of respondents with poor quality of life as only 5(10.4%) of them reported having strong family support. Also, majority [n = 33 (68.8%)] of respondents with poor quality of life reported having weak family support. Strong family support was an independent predictor of good quality of life among study participants. Respondents with strong family support were 14 times more likely to have good quality of life than those with no family support.
Conclusion: Good family support positively correlated with better quality of life of respondents. Hence, Family Physicians should utilise this resource by advocating for an active involvement of family members in management plans of DM patients to enhance their quality of life.