Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Cultural/psychological/spiritual/social factors influence quality-of-life (QOL) of population with diabetes [PWD]. We correlated spiritual well-being, religiosity, QOL, depression, and end-of-life despair in terminally ill PWD. We also explored stigmatized-issue of sexual-desire of PWD.

Aim: Evaluate spirituality and its relation to depression and the QOL. Analyze impact of anxiety/mental-fatigue due to DIABETIES-diagnosis on sexuality/desire.

Patients and methods: We surveyed 62 PWD through questionnaires. [FACIT-Sp QOL questionnaire & Beck-Depression-Inventory, Hamilton-Depression-Rating-Scale (HDRS), Memorial-Symptom-Assessment-Scale, Duke-UNC Functional-Social-Support-Questionnaire]. Evaluated correlations between variables with Chi-square-Fisher and ANOVA-tests. Multiple regressionanalysis to evaluate if depression and spirituality would independently correlate with QOL.

Results: n=62. 56 participants completed-study. [4-died, 2-dropouts]. Mean-age 50-65years. 45-males, 11-female. 37-married. 82% felt religious-faith/spirituality most-important-factor to cope with HIV. no statistical-correlations between FACIT-Sp-scores & demographic-variables. significant correlations between higher-scores of spirituality (ANOVA P<0.001) with absence-of-depression. By multiple-regression-analysis both spirituality-dominion of FACIT-Sp and Beck-depression-inventory-score correlated independently and significantly with general-QOL measured by FACT-G-questionnaire’s score (P=0.023 and P=0.003, respectively).Strong-negative-association observed between FACIT-Spiritual-Well-Being-Scale and HDRS.

Conclusion: QOL/Mental[wellbeing of PWD enhanced by spirituality/psycho-social-support. religion provide solace reducing depression. spirituality/psycho-social-support emerging new hope for PWD. Spiritual well-being prevents end-of-life-despair. Effect of spiritual/psycho-social-community support fertile ground for further investigations. We need to work-together/share-experiences to further ground work on this issue among patients community with a larger sample size. We aim at improving spiritual-health and general-QOL among PWD.