Instrument to assess self-care capacity in adolescents

With the purpose of designing an instrument to measure self-care capacity in adolescents suffering from diabetes mellitus, a descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in the context of the Pediatric Hospital "José Luis Miranda" of Santa Clara, Villa Clara, Cuba. The population consisted of all the adolescents who suffered from diabetes mellitus in that period (90), by non-probabilistic intentional sampling of voluntary subjects, 40 were worked with. The main variables of the study were: age group, sex, skin color, origin, parents' schooling, physical exercises, attitude towards the disease, complications and continuous relationship with the health center. The main results were that 45% of the patients were in the 10-12 years age group, 80% of the patients had white skin color and 75% did not do physical exercise. An observation guide was made, the fundamental nuclei were enunciated in 9 items in accordance with Dorothea Orem's self-care requirements.