The relationships among self-efficacy, social support, and self-care behavior in the elderly patients with chronic pain (a STROBE-compliant article)

Abstract

Abstract The relationships among the self-efficacy, social support and self-care behavior in the elderly patients with chronic pain has not been reported. Therefore, we explored the relationships among self-efficacy, social support and self-care behavior in the elderly patients with chronic pain. General data questionnaire, self-efficacy scale, social support scale and self-care behavior scale were performed in 1032 elderly patients with chronic pain from Shenyang city between February and December 2017. The relationships among self-efficacy, social support and self-care behavior, and self-efficacy as a mediator between the social support and self-care behavior were analyzed by Pearson correlation analysis and Bootstrap method. In these elderly patients with chronic pain, the total scores of the self-efficacy, social support and self-care behavior were 35.59\u200a±\u200a12.38, 65.64\u200a±\u200a19.68 and 50.52\u200a±\u200a15.26, respectively. The self-efficacy was positively correlated with the self-care behavior (r\u200a=\u200a0.414, P\u200a<\u200a.001), the self-efficacy was positively correlated with the social support (r\u200a=\u200a0.293, P\u200a<\u200a.001) and the social support was positively correlated with the self-care behavior (r\u200a=\u200a0.322, P\u200a<\u200a.001). The mediating effect of self-efficacy was 0.121 which accounted for 27.31% of the total effects. The self-efficacy plays a mediating effect between social support and self-care behavior in the elderly patients with chronic pain.