Abstract

Introduction: It has been recognized that adoption of self treatment or self management skills by diabetics is beneficial in treatment/management of their disorder. Self-treatment or self-management is the behavior that a patient follows to relieve his/her health related problems without professional supervision. Materials and Methods: In a qualitative and phenomenology study, adult patients with diabetes mellitus type 2, who were referred to the diabetes clinic in Kashan in 1386, were interviewed with and questioned about their experiences in self treatment all interviews were recorded and data was analyzed using the Colizzi method. Results: Twenty patients (14 females and 6 males) participated in the study, average age 51 years. The 80 themes extracted from the interviews were clustered in 7 categories. Concealing the disease, such as denial factors facilitating self treatment, such as treatment costs factors related to disease such as type and severity of the disease factors related to the physician, such as trust and availability and hopeless of consulting the doctor the restricting inhibitor factors like education, or unsupervised self treatment, such as self medication self treatment related consequences like delayed recovery or complications. Conclusion: Self treatment is a complex behavior with different presentations that is influenced by so many interrelated factors. Self treatment in diabetes mellitus can have severe consequences, viz. delay in treatment. Patient education and facilitating easier access to treatment can improve the use of such treatments.