Does kindness matter? Self-compassion buffers the negative impact of diabetes-distress on HbA1c

Abstract

Background: Higher self-compassion is associated with mental and physical health benefits in both healthy and chronically ill populations. The current study investigated the role of self-compassion in predicting depression, diabetes-specific distress and HbA1c in patients with diabetes. Aims: To assess the specific operationalization of negative emotionality that best predicted HbA1c and to test whether self-compassion would buffer HbA1c in patients with diabetes against the negative effects of distress. Methods: Patients with diabetes (n = 110) completed measures assessing trait self-compassion, depression and diabetes-distress. HbA1c results were obtained through medical records. Results: As expected, diabetes-specific distress was a better predictor of HbA1c than depression; self-compassion moderated the relationship between distress and HbA1c such that higher distress predicted higher HbA1c at lower levels of self-compassion, but not at higher levels of self-compassion. Conclusions: In addition to further demonstrating the link between distress and metabolic outcomes, these findings suggest that self-compassion might buffer patients from the negative metabolic consequences of diabetes-distress.