A qualitative investigation into the lived experiences of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus

BACKGROUND: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a chronic disease which afflicts a large number of people all over the world and causes numerous complications to the patients and decreases the quality of their lives. The present study was carried out in order to investigate the lived experiences of patients with T2DM. METHODS: The present study was carried out by a qualitative method. To collect the required data, in-depth semi-structured interviews were carried out with 10 patients with T2DM who referred to Bli Hospital in Mergasour District, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, in 2018. The interviews were transcribed and analyzed using Van Manen's (1990) hermeneutic phenomenological method, and the themes were retrieved. RESULTS: Based on the results of analyzing the interviews, it was seen that the patients referred to DM as a disease that cannot be treated, which was labelled as “incurable disease”. They also referred to the fact that DM had made their life very hard, which was labelled as “difficult life”. Moreover, they stated that DM was a silent killer, which was labelled as “silent disease”. Finally, they referred to taking insulin shot as addictive, which was referred to as “problem with taking insulin”. CONCLUSION: According to the results, the patients' lived experiences were interpreted as incurable disease, difficult life, and silent disease, which requires social and individual support to be tackled. Moreover, alternative medicines should be figured out because insulin injection was referred to as addictive. The results of the present study can be utilized by clinical trials focusing on treating and helping patients with T2DM and enhancing the quality of their lives.