‏ Barriers and Facilitators that Affect Self-Care Practices among Children with Type 1 Diabetes

Background: Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus (T1DM) is more prevailing disease in children. Intervening in self-care is crucial for disease management and to reduce the risk of diabetes-specific complications Aim: Explore barriers and facilitators that affect self-care practices among children with T1DM. Design: cross-sectional study was used. Sample: A purposive sample of 193children was included. Instruments: Part I: Socio-demographic characteristics of children; Part II: Diabetes Self-Care Ability Questionnaire;Part III: Barriers that hinder self-care; Part IV: Perception of studied children about potential facilitators to self-care: Results: The highest barriers which hinder self-care practices were poor adherence to medications, difficulty in following recommended dietary plans and lack of knowledge about the health condition, additionally, anxious about the health condition as actually barriers that hinder self-care. The top most facilitators as emotional support and allow clinic follow-up at the school, motivate the students to adequate self-care and training program about disease as ways to facilitate self-care. Conclusion: More than half of studied children had unsatisfactory total self-care, while more than one third of them had satisfactory total self-care. Also, there was high negative correlation between total barriers and total self-care practices. Recommendations: Design implications for technologies to support collaborative care by improving children’s transition to independent illness management. Supplementing therapeutic education with strategies designed to raise levels of motivation, discussion of beliefs about the disease