A STUDY TO ASSESS THE LEVEL OF STRESS AMONG THE PATIENTS WITH CHRONIC DIABETES MELLITUS ADMITTED IN SELECTED HOSPITALS

Introduction: Diabetes mellitus is a disease which must be controlled over the lifetime of a patient. The diagnosis and presence of a chronic disease may be considered a difficult and stressful situation in life, a situation in which coping mechanisms are psychological processes developed at a conscious level to manage these situations. Methodology: Quantitative Research Approach and Descriptive Research Design were adopted for this study. The setting of the study was Sri ManakulaVinayagar Medical College and Hospital at Puducherry. Totally 200 Chronic Diabetes Mellitus Patients who were attending Medical and Surgical OPD and Inpatients department in selected hospital were selected as sample. Purposive Sampling technique was used to select the samples for this study. Results: Regarding level of stress majority of them 168(84%) were in severe stress, 24(12%) were in moderate stress level, Only 6(3%) of them are having extremely severe stress and only one (0.5%) of them were in normal and mild level of stress. There is significant different between level of stress with selected demographic variable such as religion. There is no significant difference between level of stress with selected clinical variables. There is significant difference between the level of stress with psychosocial variable such as type of diet, socio economic status and nature of work. Conclusion: The results of the present study highlights the majority of diabetes patients had severe stress.