Parental Management of Young Children's Diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is a lifelong metabolic disorder that affects 1 out of every 400-600 American children each year, with many children being diagnosed at younger and younger ages. If Type 1 diabetes is not properly controlled, it can lead to a host of devastating disease-related complications later in life. Therefore, achieving proper diabetes control during childhood is an important public health issue. To achieve proper diabetes control, it is necessary to conform or adhere one's behavior to a physician-prescribed diabetes self-care regimen consisting of multiple insulin administrations and blood glucose (BG) checks daily, as well as pay careful attention to diet and exercise. As such, parents of children with Type 1 diabetes must be highly involved in managing their child's disease on a daily basis, especially parents of affected children who are very young and more highly dependent upon parental caretaking. It is not surprising that the experience of managing a child's diabetes can be demanding, overwhelming, and stressful for some parents, and may even significantly impair parental psychosocial well being. Further, difficulties achieving proper diabetes control have been reported to occur among parents of children of all ages, including parents of those who are very young. Operationally, these psychosocial well being and diabetes outcomes can be examined by assessing: (1) parental symptoms of depression, anxiety, diabetes parenting stress, and perceived social support, and (2) metabolic control, which may be measured with the quarterly HbA1C counts. As children diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes at a very young age may be at an increased risk for the development of long-term behavioral and medical complications due to the aforementioned difficulties (on the part of their parents), more research is needed to understand and treat the leading contributors to diabetes-related parental distress (depression, anxiety, stress, social support) and medical outcomes among this growing subgroup. Recent findings indicate that responsibility for diabetes management falls heavily on mothers, who report performing 79% of their children's injections and 70% of blood glucose checks (Mednick, 2005). The majority of families do not receive outside child care assistance and report feeling overwhelmed. Parents report high levels of pediatric parenting stress difficulty, as well as moderate symptoms of anxiety. The current study aims to expand such preliminary findings and specifically examine the effects of a newly-developed parenting support program for parents of young children with Type 1 diabetes. The utility of the intervention will be evaluated. It is hypothesized that parents completing the parent support program will report lower levels of psychosocial distress and improved quality of life. It is hypothesized that the children of participating parents will also demonstrate improved quality of life and metabolic control. Evaluating this intervention is a first step in the long-term goal of improving diabetes health outcomes for young children. Understanding the usefulness of this intervention can help us to further refine intervention programs for parents of young children with Type 1 diabetes that best meet their unique needs and risks.