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Diabetics with a more interactive relationship style have reduced mortality
9 March 2010
MedWire News: Patients with diabetes who have a “more interactive” relationship style and who are more inclined to seek social support when needed have lower 5-year mortality than those who do not, show study results.
“Prior research has shown that less social support is associated with increased mortality in individuals with chronic illnesses,” say Paul Ciechanowski (University of Washington, Seattle, USA) and colleagues.
They investigated whether low propensity to seek social support, indicated by relationship style and based on attachment theory, was associated with mortality in 3535 adults with Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes over a 5-year period. None of the participants had a prior history of depression.
Attachment theory “posits that all individuals develop a cognitive map based on prior experiences that determines one’s comfort and ability to interact with or reach out to others, particularly at times of distress,” explains the team.
The researchers assessed participants’ relationships at baseline, and those with a greater propensity to seek support were classified as having an interactive relationship style and those less inclined to seek support as having an independent relationship style using results from the four-item Relationship Questionnaire.
The team reports that the rate of death was 39 and 29 cases per 1000 individuals in the independent and interactive relationship style groups, respectively.
Compared with those with an interactive relationship style, patients with an independent relationship style were 33% more likely to die during the study period.
Following adjustment for demographic and clinical confounders, risk for death was still 20% higher in those with an independent versus an interactive relationship style.
“Further research is needed to examine possible mechanisms for this relationship and to develop appropriate interventions,” conclude the authors in the journal Diabetes Care.
