Background: To prevent cardiovascular disease in adults with type 2 diabetes, it is necessary to identify the factors that affect cardiovascular health behavior.
Objective: The aim of this study was to verify the causal relationship between illness perception and diabetes knowledge as cognitive representations, depression as emotional representations, self-efficacy as cognitive coping, and oral health and cardiovascular health behaviors as behavioral coping strategies. A hypothetical model was established based on a literature review and the self-regulation model.
Methods: In this study, a cross-sectional survey design was used, and the participants were adults 30 years or older who had been given a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes for more than 6 months and were recruited from South Korea. Data from 272 participants were collected through face-to-face interviews or Google surveys in 2021, and analyzed using SPSS 25.0 and AMOS 22.0.
Results: Oral health behavior (β = 0.26, P < .001) and self-efficacy (β = 0.16, P = .048) had a direct effect on cardiovascular health behavior, and illness perception (β = 0.24, P = .018) and depression (β = -0.25, P < .001) had an indirect effect through self-efficacy (β = 0.24, P = .016), with a total explanatory power of 19.1%. Oral health behavior was directly affected by illness perception and self-efficacy, and self-efficacy was directly affected by illness perception, diabetes knowledge, and depression (P < .05).
Conclusion: To practice cardiovascular health behaviors in adults with diabetes, self-efficacy for diabetes management should be enhanced. To this end, it is necessary to increase illness perception and knowledge, and reduce depression through cardiovascular disease prevention education for them, and the importance of oral health behaviors should also be emphasized.
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