Diabetes-Specific Stressors

Diabetes-specific stressors:

The psychological impact of having a disease like diabetes can be a cause of severe stress.

On the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory Scale the scores for diabetes related stressors alone=229. This stress predictor indicates a 50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years.

300 or more points increases this rate to 80%.

Diabetes Specific Score   Major personal Illness or injury – 53   Major change in health behavior – 44   Sexual Difficulties – 39   Major change in financial state – 38   Revision of personal habits – 24   Major change in sleeping habits – 16   Major change in eating habits – 15     Diabetes ALONE = 229 This stress predictor indicates a   50% chance of a major health breakdown in the next 2 years     300 or more points increases this rate to 80%

 

The Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory

We used a stress scale in the previous section in order to measure stress. The scale used was a part of the Homes-Rahe Life Stress Scale. The top section of the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory Scale shows how stressful some life events can be. The ‘death of spouse’ is considered to be the top of the scale, with other events as a percentage of that. This worksheet is intended to be filled out by the patient, and each event they mark as having been experienced in the past 12 months gets tabulated and its score added. The tally, then, gives a rough picture of the amount of stress in the patient’s life.