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. 2014 Oct 15;9(10):e109323.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0109323. eCollection 2014.

Social orientation and diabetes-related distress in Japanese and American patients with type 2 diabetes

Kaori Ikeda  1 , Shimpei Fujimoto  2 , Beth Morling  3 , Shiho Ayano-Takahara  1 , Andrew E Carroll  3 , Shin-ichi Harashima  1 , Yukiko Uchida  4 , Nobuya Inagaki  1
Affiliations

Social orientation and diabetes-related distress in Japanese and American patients with type 2 diabetes

Kaori Ikeda et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

Objective: Recent evidence in cultural and social psychology suggests Eastern cultures' emphasis on harmony and connection with others and Western cultures' emphasis on self-direction and autonomy. In Eastern society, relational harmony is closely linked to people's well-being. The impact of this cultural and social orientation on diabetes-related distress was investigated.

Research design and methods: Japanese and American patients with type 2 diabetes were surveyed by well-established questionnaire in Japan and in the United States, respectively. The association of personal values for interdependence, perceived emotional support, and the Problem Areas in Diabetes scale (PAID) were analyzed.

Results: A positive correlation between interdependence and PAID (r = 0.18; P = 0.025) and a negative correlation between perceived emotional support and PAID (r = - 0.24; P = 0.004) were observed after adjustments for other factors in Japanese data (n = 149), but not in American data (r = 0.00; P = 0.990, r = 0.02; P = 0.917, respectively, n = 50). In Japanese data, the three-factor structure of PAID (negative feelings about total life with diabetes, about living conditions with diabetes, and about treatment of diabetes) was identified, and interdependence showed significant positive correlations with the first and second factors and perceived emotional support showed significant negative correlations with all three factors of PAID.

Conclusions: These results suggest that personal values for interdependence may be linked to the level of diabetes-related distress and that the distress may be relieved by perception of emotional support, especially in an interdependent cultural context.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Distribution plots and Pearson's correlation coefficients to show the association between PAID and interdependence after adjusting for PES, self-esteem, sex, age and education level in Japanese (A) and Americans (B), between PAID and PES after adjusting for interdependence, self-esteem, sex, age and education level in Japanese (C) and Americans (D). PAID, the Problem Areas in Diabetes; PES, perceived emotional support.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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