Endocrine Abstracts

Facilitating empowerment among people with diabetes is the responsibility of all health care providers. However, research suggests that the health care providers do not have the knowledge and skills to facilitate empowerment. As a result, many Iranian people with diabetes experience low levels of empowerment. The aim of the study was to explore and understand how empowerment occurs in people with diabetes in Iran. Grounded theory method using in-depth interviews, field notes, and memos, were used to collect data from 25 people with diabetes, their families, and health care providers. Constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the data. Findings showed that empowerment is a transitional, perceptual and continuous process in people with diabetes and includes threatened identity, reconstructing pre-diabetes identity and gaining a new identity, which is influenced by a combination of knowledge, social support, values and beliefs, psychosocial issues, and the nature of diabetes. Facilitating empowerment can help people with diabetes integrate diabetes into their self-identity; however, achieving empowerment is complex and occurs over time.

Declaration of interest: The authors declare that there is no conflict of interest that could be perceived as prejudicing the impartiality of the research project.

Funding: This work was supported, however funding details unavailable.