Background: Nursing professionals have received comprehensive medical education and training. However, whether\nthese medical professionals exhibit positive patient care attitudes and behaviors and thus reduce mortality risks when\nthey themselves are diagnosed with chronic diseases is worth exploring. This study compared the mortality risks of\nfemale nurses and general patients with diabetes and elucidated factors that caused this difference.\nMethods: A total of 510,058 female patients newly diagnosed with diabetes between 1998 and 2006 as recorded in\nthe National Health Insurance Research Database were the participants in this study. Nurses with diabetes and general\npopulation with diabetes were matched with propensity score method in a 1:10 ratio. The participants were tracked\nfrom the date of diagnosis to 2009. The Cox proportional hazards model was utilized to compare the mortality risks in\nthe two groups.\nResults: Nurses were newly diagnosed with diabetes at a younger age compared with the general public (42.01 Ã?± 12.\n03 y vs. 59.29 Ã?± 13.11 y). Nevertheless, the matching results showed that nurses had lower mortality risks (HR: 0.53, 95 %\nCI: 0.38ââ?¬â??0.74) and nurses with diabetes in the < 35 and 35ââ?¬â??44 age groups exhibited significantly lower mortality risks\ncompared with general patients (HR: 0.23 and 0.36). A further analysis indicated that the factors that influenced the\nmortality risks of nurses with diabetes included age, catastrophic illnesses, and the severity of diabetes complications.\nConclusion: Nurses with diabetes exhibited lower mortality risks possibly because they had received comprehensive\nmedical education and training, may had more knowledge regarding chronic disease control and change their lifestyles.\nThe results can serve as a reference for developing heath education, and for preventing occupational hazards in nurses.
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