Endocrine Abstracts

Background: Diabetes Mellitus is a chronic metabolic disorder with grievous complications affecting every aspect of the patients’ life. Availability of social support helps patients to cope better with the disease, hence positively affecting their quality of life.

Objectives: To assess the level of perceived social support and its relationship to health-related quality of life of T2DM patients attending a public hospital in Lagos, Nigeria.

Methodology: A cross-sectional study of 230 consenting adult T2DM patients selected by systematic random sampling and conducted at the General Hospital Odan, Lagos Island. Data about the patients’ socio-demographic and clinical characteristics were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire while those about perceived social support and quality of life were collected with the Medical Outcome Study Social Support Survey and WHOQOL-BREF questionnaires. Data were analyzed using the Statistical Package of Social Sciences version 20. Relationship between the domains of quality of life and types of social support was determined using the Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Level of statistical significance was set at P< 0.05.

Results: Majority (57.8%) of the patients had a high level of social support, with the tangible support being the highest followed by affectionate support. All types of perceived social support (except positive social interaction) were positively and significantly correlated with all the domains of quality of life.

Conclusion: The level of social support among T2DM patients is high. Social support has a statistically significant relationship to health-related quality of life.

Keywords: T2DM, social support, quality of life