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Diabetes Knowledge as a Moderator of Reactions to Illness by Patients With Insulin‐Dependent Diabetes Mellitus 1
Author(s) -
Strube Michael J,
Yost John H.,
HaireJoshu Debra
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01015.x
Subject(s) - moderation , diabetes mellitus , metabolic control analysis , psychology , insulin , medicine , social psychology , endocrinology
We examined patient knowledge as a moderator of psychological reactions to illness among patients with insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus. We reasoned that knowledgeable patients would have the most severe reactions to their illness because the causal implications of good or poor metabolic control would be most apparent. Accordingly, we expected that more knowledgeable patients would react more negatively than less knowledgeable patients to poor metabolic control but would react more positively to good metabolic control. Results from a sample of 46 patients with insulin‐dependent diabetes mellitus supported this hypothesis. These findings suggest that increased patient knowledge may not produce uniformly positive results. Patient education programs must consider the psychological implications of patient knowledge in addition to the physiological consequences.