Determinants of Poor Self-rated Health in Korean Adults With Diabetes

Abstract

Objectives:Self-rated health is a measure of perceived health widely used in epidemiological studies. Our study investigated the determinants of poor self-rated health in middle-aged Korean adults with diabetes.Methods:A cross-sectional study was conducted based on the Health Examinees Study. A total of 9759 adults aged 40 to 69 years who reported having physician-diagnosed diabetes were analyzed with regard to a range of health determinants, including sociodemographic, lifestyle, psychosocial, and physical variables, in association with self-rated health status using multivariate logistic regression models. A p-value <0.05 was considered to indicate statistical significance.Results:We found that negative psychosocial conditions, including frequent stress events and severe distress according to the psychosocial well-being index, were most strongly associated with poor self-rated health (odds ratio [OR]Frequent stress events, 5.40; 95% confidence interval [CI], 4.63 to 6.29; ORSevere distress, 11.08; 95% CI, 8.77 to 14.00). Moreover, younger age and being underweight or obese were shown to be associated with poor self-rated health. Physical factors relating to participants’ medical history of diabetes, such as a younger age at diagnosis, a longer duration of diabetes, insulin therapy, hemoglobin A1clevels of 6.5% or more, and comorbidities, were other correlates of poor reported health.Conclusions:Our findings suggest that, in addition to medical variables, unfavorable socioeconomic factors, and adverse lifestyle behaviors, younger age, being underweight or obese, and psychosocial stress could be distinc factors in predicting negative perceived health status in Korean adults with diabetes.

Self‐reported oral health predicts tooth loss after five and ten years in a population‐based study

“…In this study, the greatest impact of poor rating on future tooth loss was found in middle‐aged people, that is participants aged 40–60 at baseline. This finding is different from other studies, in which the rate of people rating their oral health rather as poor was especially high in the youngest (Ekbäck et al., ; Guarnizo‐Herreno et al., ; Lee et al., ). It was suggested that younger persons may have more profound oral health impacts and higher neuroticism scores.…”

“…Most obviously, socioeconomic factors are important. These comprise low education and/or low income (Guarnizo-Herreno et al, 2014;Sanders & Spencer, 2005;Trachte, Geyer, & Sperlich, 2016;Turrell, Sanders, Slade, Spencer, & Marcenes, 2007), smoking (Csikar et al, 2016), frequent stress events, or obesity (Lee, Song, Yang, & Kang, 2015). Also, overt symptoms of oral disease contribute to poor rating, such as the number of lacking teeth, difficulty in mastication, or xerostomia (Ohara et al, 2015).…”

Body mass index and self-rated health in East Asian countries: Comparison among South Korea, China, Japan, and Taiwan

“…South Korea is one of the most rapidly aging counties because of decreasing birth rate and increasing life expectancy and has recently experienced rapid growth in its economy [ 31 ]. Therefore, the finding regarding the association between being underweight and poor SRH status was consistent with previous findings in low-income or middle-income developing countries [ 9 , 32 ], while the finding regarding the negative association between obese/severely obese and SRH status was consistent with the results of other studies that found that being obese was associated with poor SRH status [ 5 , 6 , 33 , 34 ]. In South Korea, especially among the younger generation, people who are more skinny are seen as more attractive [ 25 , 26 ].…”

Gender perspective in the analysis of the relationship between health and work cessation, and how to deal with it

“…The authors used specific diseases as potential risk factors of labor market performance. This study also included a subjective health assessment, which could be even more sensitive in health monitoring than external measures of health [57]. Nevertheless, some limitations must be taken into account in this study.…”