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

Objectives: Self-rated health is a measure of perceived health widely used in epidemiological studies. Our study investigated the de-terminants 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 sociode-mographic, lifestyle, psychosocial, and physical variables, in association with self-rated health status using multivariate logistic regres-sion 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 psy-chosocial well-being index, were most strongly associated with poor self-rated health (odds ratio [OR]Frequent stress events, 5.40; 95 % confi-dence 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 A1c levels 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 be