Type 2 diabetes has a significant influence on the individual's lifestyle due to its specificity, as it requires certain adjustments in everyday life. Inadequate treatment and progression of the disease may lead to additional complications, which significantly affect the perceived quality of life of an individual patient. Prevention against type 2 diabetes and additional problems in the progression of the disease is also physical/sports activity.
The purpose of the study was to determine whether there is a correlation between the self-reported perceived quality of life and the regular physical/sports activity of patients with type 2 diabetes. We were also interested in how the perceived quality of life is changing after the diagnosis. We examined the differences between physically active and inactive people for four fields of quality of life: general health, socio-economic status, mental contentment and family contentment. The results were obtained using the Quality of Life Index for patients with type 2 diabetes.
The study involved 42 people with type 2 diabetes, aged 19 to 65 years. We divided them into two groups. In the first group, there were regularly physical/sports active people (N = 27), while in the second group they were people who were not regularly physical/sports active (N = 16). The criterion for physical/sports activity was at least 90 minutes of any physical/sports activity (e.g. walking, running, swimming) per week. The average time since diagnosis was 8.38 years (SD = 6.82).
The results of median values showed that physically active individuals are more likely to evaluate the quality of life higher, but the differences between the groups are not statistically significant. The greatest differences in median values have been shown in the general health situation (M1 = 18.08, M2 = 17.57), small differences in the field of socioeconomic status (M1 = 20.18; M2 = 19.38) and psychological contentment (M1 = 19.20; M2 = 18.51), and the smallest differences in the field of family contentment (M1 = 21.65; M2 = 21.21). In none of the four fields, the differences were statistically significant. We found a weakly positive correlation between the time since the diagnosis and the perceived quality of life, but the correlation is not statistically significant (p = 0.06).
The biggest differences between the two groups appeared in the field of general health situation, because the physical/sports activity has the most direct impact on an individual’s physical wellbeing. In other fields, there are other factors, which do not have a direct connection with diabetes, that can have a big impact on the evaluation of the quality of life (e.g. divorce, financial situation etc.). It would make sense to monitor the participants of the study for a longer time and encourage them to take part in more physical/sport activity, and then compare the self-evaluation of the quality of life.
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