Table 1.
Demographic and clinical characteristics of study participants
| Material and social deprivation |
||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Men (n = 681) |
Women (n = 758) |
|||||||
| Low | Medium | High | P * | Low | Medium | High | P * | |
| n | 95 | 469 | 117 | 78 | 506 | 174 | ||
| Demographic variables | ||||||||
| Age (years) | 59.7 ± 10.9 | 59.9 ± 10.7 | 59.3 ± 11.1 | 0.885 | 57.7 ± 11.6 | 59.6 ± 11.6 | 61.2 ± 11.0 | 0.070 |
| Marital status | ||||||||
| Single | 3.1 | 12.5 | 21.3 | <0.001 | 6.5 | 11.7 | 16.6 | <0.001 |
| Married | 80.9 | 71.5 | 57.3 | 58.9 | 56.5 | 36.8 | ||
| Widowed/divorced/separated | 16.0 | 16.0 | 21.4 | 34.6 | 31.8 | 46.6 | ||
| Ethnicity (% Caucasian) | 86.3 | 93.5 | 87.8 | 0.023 | 87.0 | 94.6 | 91.3 | 0.031 |
| Social support | 71.0 ± 25.4 | 64.0 ± 27.0 | 59.8 ± 30.5 | 0.006 | 68.5 ± 26.0 | 66.3 ± 25.2 | 57.6 ± 26.1 | 0.036 |
| Socioeconomic variables | ||||||||
| Education | ||||||||
| <High school | 27.7 | 40.9 | 47.8 | 0.034 | 37.7 | 46.6 | 56.7 | 0.014 |
| High school | 34.0 | 27.3 | 28.7 | 26.0 | 26.2 | 25.4 | ||
| >High school | 38.3 | 31.8 | 23.5 | 36.3 | 27.2 | 17.9 | ||
| Household income | ||||||||
| <Can$50,000 | 40.0 | 62.9 | 75.2 | <0.001 | 44.9 | 76.9 | 88.5 | <0.001 |
| Can$50,000–80,000 | 24.2 | 18.6 | 16.2 | 23.1 | 13.0 | 6.9 | ||
| >Can$80,000 | 35.8 | 18.5 | 8.6 | 32.0 | 10.1 | 4.6 | ||
| Lifestyle-related behaviors | ||||||||
| Smoking | ||||||||
| Current | 12.6 | 19.4 | 36.2 | <0.001 | 23.4 | 20.6 | 27.0 | 0.115 |
| Former | 47.4 | 53.9 | 42.2 | 24.7 | 36.7 | 31.0 | ||
| Physically inactive | 16.0 | 28.5 | 37.9 | 0.002 | 30.1 | 30.8 | 39.3 | 0.113 |
| BMI (kg/m2) | 29.8 ± 8.2 | 30.4 ± 7.3 | 29.5 ± 6.5 | 0.475 | 29.7 ± 6.7 | 30.5 ± 7.6 | 31.8 ± 10.7 | 0.133 |
| Health care access problems | ||||||||
| Has a regular family doctor | 91.6 | 94.9 | 90.6 | 0.154 | 91.0 | 94.7 | 94.8 | 0.411 |
| Difficulties obtaining specialist care | 17.9 | 23.5 | 18.0 | 0.269 | 22.0 | 26.2 | 16.1 | 0.023 |
| Difficulties obtaining information/advice | 6.3 | 5.3 | 7.7 | 0.612 | 10.4 | 6.5 | 8.1 | 0.434 |
| Diabetes-related variables | ||||||||
| Diabetes duration (years) | 10.3 ± 9.4 | 11.4 ± 11.0 | 10.4 ± 10.4 | 0.519 | 8.0 ± 8.2 | 10.6 ± 10.4 | 13.7 ± 13.6 | <0.001 |
| Insulin use | 23.2 | 25.2 | 19.8 | 0.467 | 14.1 | 23.4 | 28.3 | 0.048 |
| Diabetes-specific complications | ||||||||
| 0 | 40.8 | 31.6 | 29.6 | 0.004 | 34.3 | 30.6 | 23.9 | 0.215 |
| 1 | 29.6 | 30.1 | 16.3 | 23.3 | 30.0 | 27.7 | ||
| >1 | 29.6 | 38.3 | 54.1 | 42.4 | 39.4 | 48.4 | ||
Data are means ± SD and percent.
*P values refer to comparison between those living in low, medium, and high social and material deprivation areas. Scores of the social support scale were transformed linearly to a 0–100 scale, where 0 and 100 are assigned to the lowest and highest possible scores, respectively.