Adolescent views of diabetes-related parent conflict and support: a focus group analysis.

Purpose: To increase understanding of adolescent-parent diabetes-related conflicts and supports in the management of type 1 diabetes by means of a focus group research approach.
Methods: Twenty-four adolescents (10 boys and 14 girls, age 13-15 years; 97% white) participated in three same-sex focus groups at two diabetes summer camps. The focus group leader used a prepared set of open-ended questions to guide the 90-minute sessions. Sessions were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed by a set procedure for qualitative analysis to identify the adolescents' perspectives on parent-adolescent sources of diabetes-related conflict and support.
Results: Adolescents reported the following sources of diabetes-related conflict: parental worry and intrusive behaviors; parental lack of understanding and blaming behaviors, and the parents focus on the future vs. the adolescent focus on the present. With regard to diabetes-related support, the teens identified parental understanding of the demands of diabetes and parental provision of reassurance about their child's illness and normative functioning.
Conclusions: Adolescents' perceptions of parental worry, lack of understanding, and resulting intrusive and blaming behaviors are major areas of conflict that need to be addressed in the management of type 1 diabetes.