The relationship between diabetes burden and health-related quality of life in elderly people with diabetes

Background: One of the most common chronic diseases in the elderly is diabetes. When diabetes is not well controlled, it can cause complications and affect health-related quality of life. Determining the burden of diabetes in elderly patients can provide a good health-related quality of life.Aim: The study was conducted to examine the relationship between diabetes burden and health-related quality of life in elderly patients with diabetes.Methods: This is a descriptive and correlational study of 207 patients who applied to the diabetes outpatient clinics of a private and a public hospital in Istanbul. Respondents were completed with "Personal Information Form for Elderly People", "Elderly Diabetes Burden Scale" and the "Quality of Life in the Elderly Scale". Data were analyzed by SPSS. The tests used are Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal Wallis and Spearman Correlation tests.Results: The mean total score from the Elderly Diabetes Burden Scale was 47.13 +/- 11.95 (18-88), and the mean score from the Quality of Life in the Elderly Scale was 19.36 +/- 7.00. In the study, as the total diabetes burden score of the elderly patients increased, the Quality of Life in the Elderly Scale score decreased. There was a difference between the mean total score of the Elderly Diabetes Burden Scale and gender, education, living alone and using oral antidiabetic (p < 0.05).Conclusions: As a result it was determined, a negative correlation was found between the diabetes CASP-19 scale total score and the total EDBS. Determining the burden of diabetes and affecting factors in elderly is important in terms of increasing the health-related quality of life. It may be recommended to plan diabetes education pro-grams that will reduce the burden of diabetes and increase the health-related quality of life in elderly patients.