L'IMPATTO DELLO STRESS GENITORIALE E DELLA PAURA DELL'IPOGLICEMIA SUL PROFILO GLICOMETABOLICO DI BAMBINI CON DIABETE DI TIPO 1.

Objective: The literature has focused on the psychological impact of type 1 diabetes; however, few of them have explored the possible causal mechanism between the psychological variables of the parents and the glycometabolic outcome of the children. A good number of previous studies, despite otherwise diverging results, have identified parental fear of hypoglycemia and parental stress as risk factor for psychological outcomes and childs' glycometabolic control (e.g. Patton et al., 2008). We hypotesize that fear of hypoglycemia has an indirect impact on glycated hemoglobin, through parenting stress. Method and results: 80 parents of children with type 1 diabetes with type 1 completed Parenting Stress Index and Fear of Hypoglycemia-Parent Version. Glycemic control was extracted from the medical database. Mediation analysis revealed that fear of hypoglycemia predicts parenting stress (β =0,521; p<0,001) which in turns, predicts glycated hemoglobin (β=0,372; p<0,05). Conclusions: According to the hypothesis, results suggest that the relationship between fear of hypoglycemia and glycated hemoglobin is totally mediated through parenting stress. The importance of including the assessment of psychological parental variables and taking charge of the entire family unit is therefore evident. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]