Learning To Get Along With Chronic Illness:the Self-management And Sick Role Identification In Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

Through the study about illness experience and treatment process of 16 patients with type 2 diabetes,this paper analyzes the specific ways of disease management in diet and daily life,and expounds the process of discovering and recognizing the body gradually in the coexistence of patients with their disease.Because diabetes cannot be cured through medical intervention,patients have to face the reality of disease control through dietary adjustment and lifestyle changes.In the patient’s daily life,the experience of facing and coping with the disease is the process to discover the neglected physical body,and also,is the process for patient to choose the coping strategy in their social life,and finally gain identity of the sick role.Based on the method of illness narrative,this paper first describes the diagnosis and treatment process of patients with diabetes.At this stage,the patient’s body gradually gained subjectivity,and the patient began to examine the body itself,especially in the course of the patient’s medication,which made him aware of the limitations of drug therapy on diabetes.Faced with the limitations of drug therapy,diabetics have begun to manage their own diseases.Empirical materials show that some patients can achieve self-management through positive dietary adjustments and lifestyle changes based on the doctor’s advice,while some patients are unwilling or unable to make compromises in their lives,which presenting a negative self-management pattern.But this does not affect the patient to spread the idea that everyone should pay attention to their body to relatives and friends around them.These two modes of self-management are not completely separated in reality,which shows many overlapping and contradictions,these contradictions are embodied in the difference between modern and classic sick roles.Faced with the change of the role of patients in modern society,diabetics should not only undertake certain social roles as normal people,but also manage the disease as patients.In the face of this overlapping role,the patient has established a unique role identification method-strategic identity,which means after judging the specific situation of the role that others expected,and then make strategic choices and perform this role.