The Relationship between Psychological Resilience and Quality of Life among the Chinese Diabetes Patients: The Mediating role of Stigma and the The Moderating role of Empowerment

Objective: The quality of life of diabetes patients is associated with their disease or surrounding social environment. How to deal with psychological changes and adjust psychological stress response is worth further discussion. The researchers constructed moderated mediation models to test the impact of psychological resilience on the quality of life of people with diabetes, as well as the mediating role of stigma and the moderating role of empowerment. Method: From June to September 2022, data were collected by multi-stage stratified sampling. Firstly, the First Affiliated Hospital of Wannan Medical College was randomly selected from all tertiary hospitals in Wuhu, Anhui Province. Secondly, two departments were randomly selected from this hospital: endocrinology and geriatrics. Thirdly, survey points were set up in each department, and T2DM patients were randomly selected for questionnaire surveys. In addition, we used the Connor-Davidson Elasticity Scale (CD-RISC) to measure the psychological resilience of patients, and used the Stigma Scale for Chronic Illness (SSCI) to measure stigma. Empowerment was measured by the Diabetes Empowerment Scale (DES). Quality of Life was assessed by the Diabetes Quality of Life Scale (DQoL). We used SPSS (version 21) and PROCESS (version 4.1) for data analysis. Results: : (1) Psychological resilience was negatively correlated with stigma and quality of life, and positively correlated with empowerment. Stigma was positively associated with empowerment and quality of life. Empowerment was negatively correlated with quality of life. (2) The mediation analysis showed that psychological resilience had a direct predictive effect on the quality of life, and stigma partially mediated the relationship; Empowerment moderates the first half of "PR→ stigma → quality of life"; Empowerment moderates the latter part of "PR→ stigma → quality of life." Conclusion: Under the mediating effect of stigma, psychological resilience can improve quality of life. Empowerment has a moderating effect on the relationship between psychological resilience and stigma, and it also has a moderating effect on the relationship between stigma and quality of life. These results facilitate the understanding of the relationship mechanisms between psychological resilience and quality of life.