Abstract

CUNHA, Madalena; CHIBANTE, Rosa  and  ANDRE, Suzana. Social Support, Empowerment and Chronic Disease. Revista Portuguesa de Enfermagem de Saúde Mental [online]. 2014, n.spe1, pp.21-26. ISSN 1647-2160.

BACKGROUND: Empowerment is a philosophy demanded to people with chronic disease such as diabetes in order to overcome the requirements of daily living with the disease itself. In turn social support is a resource whose information, emotional and instrumental support plays an important role in promoting self-management of diabetes, contributing to the development of capacity of people to overcome the obstacles they encounter in their day-to-day. AIM: To evaluate whether social support predicts the empowerment. METHODS: This descriptive study was conducted in a non-probability sample was composed of 150 people with diabetes followed in health facilities of primary health care, in Consultation Diabetes. The average age was 66,85 years, most married/living with a partner, retired, with a prevalence of the 1st cycle of basic education. In data collection used the Diabetes Empowerment Scale (Anderson, Funnell, Fitzgerald & Marrero, 2000) and the Social Support Scale (Matos e Ferreira, 2000). RESULTS: The majority of participants were scored with high empowerment and social support was perceived as being good. The educational level and the professional activity are positively related to the empowerment. The social support proved to be a positive predictor of training, explaining 17,1% of its variability, noting that the better social support, greater training/empowerment manifested by people with diabetes. CONCLUSIONS: Include the management of the resources of social support in Nursing Consultation/Diabetes is assumed as a strategy to promote the empowerment/training of people with diabetes.

Keywords : Power (Psychology); Social support; Diabetes mellitus.

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