Seeking new identity through the empowerment process.
BACKGROUND
All health professionals are responsible for facilitating empowerment among people with diabetes. However, research suggests that health professionals do not have the knowledge and skills to help people with diabetes become empowered. As a result, many Iranian people with diabetes do not become empowered. The aim of the study was to explore and understand how empowerment occurs in Iranian people with diabetes.


METHODS
Grounded theory using individual open in-depth interviews, field notes, and memos was used to collect data from 25 people with diabetes, their families, and health professionals. Strauss and Corbin's constant comparative analysis was used to analyze the data.


RESULTS
Empowerment is a transitional, perceptual, and continuous process. The process for people with diabetes includes threatened identity when diabetes is diagnosed, reconstructing identity, and integrating diabetes into identity to become an empowered person with diabetes. The empowerment process was influenced by a combination of knowledge, social support, values and beliefs, psychosocial issues, and the nature of diabetes.


CONCLUSIONS
Health professionals can help people with diabetes integrate diabetes into their identity and become empowered; however, becoming empowered is complicated and occurs over time.
Department of Adult Nursing, Nursing and Midwifery Research Care Centre, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran.
Samereh
S
Abdoli
Department of Medical-Surgical, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Tahereh
T
Ashktorab
Department of Nursing, Faculty of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Fazlollah
F
Ahmadi
Department of Community Health Nursing, Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran.
Soroor
S
Parvizy
Department of Nursing, Faculty of Health, Deakin University and Barwon Health, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
Trisha
T
Dunning
Diabetes; Iran; empowerment; grounded theory