Psychological Well-Being of Parents of Very Young Children With Type 1 Diabetes - Baseline Assessment.

Background: Type 1 diabetes in young children is a heavy parental burden. As part of pilot phase of the KIDSAP01 study, we conducted a baseline assessment in parents to study the association between hypoglycemia fear, parental well-being and child behavior.
Methods: All parents were invited to fill in baseline questionnaires: hypoglycemia fear survey (HFS), WHO-5, Epworth Sleepiness Scale and Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ).
Results: 24 children (median age: 5-year, range 1-7 years, 63% male, mean diabetes duration: 3 ± 1.7 years) participated. 23/24 parents filled out the questionnaires. We found a higher score for the hypoglycemia fear behavior 33.9 ± 5.6 compared to hypoglycemia worry 34.6 ± 12.2. Median WHO-5 score was 16 (8 - 22) with poor well-being in two parents. Median daytime sleepiness score was high in five parents (>10). For six children a high total behavioral difficulty score (>16) was reported. Pro social behavior score was lower than normal in six children (<6). Parental well-being was negatively associated with HFS total ( r = - 0.50, p <.05) and subscale scores ( r = - 0.44, p <.05 for HFS-Worry and HFS-Behavior), child behavior ( r = - 0.45, p = .05) and positively with child age and diabetes duration ( r = 0.58, p <.01, r = 0.6, p <.01). HFS, parental well-being nor daytime sleepiness are associated with the HbA1c.
Conclusion: Regular screening of parental well-being, hypoglycemia fear and child behavior should be part of routine care to target early intervention.
Competing Interests: MT reports having received speaker honoraria from Minimed Medtronic and Novo Nordisk. MFr has received speaker honoraria from Minimed Medtronic and has served on advisory boards for Eli Lilly. JM is a member in the advisory board of Becton-Dickinson, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Medtronic and Sanofi, and has received speaker honoraria from ABBOTT Diabetes Care, Astra Zeneca, Eli Lilly, Nintamed, Novo Nordisk, Roche Diabetes Care, Sanofi, Servier and Takeda. MW has received license fees from Becton Dickinson and has served as a consultant to Beckton Dickinson. SH declares speaker honoraria from Eli Lilly and Sanofi. EF-R reports having received speaker honoraria from Minimed Medtronic and Eli Lilly, serving on advisory boards for Eli Lilly. TK has received speaker honoraria from Minimed Medtronic, Roche and Eli Lilly and is member of an advisory board for ABBOTTt Diabetes Care. CdB has received speaker honoraria from Minimed Medtronic and is member of their European Psychology Advisory Board. FC does attend Advisory Boards and obtain speaking fees for ABBOTTt, Medtronic, Lilly, and NovoNordisk. BR-M reports having received speaker honoraria from Minimed Medtronic, Eli Lilly, Roche, Menarini and Novo Nordisk, serving on advisory boards for Eli Lilly. RH reports having received speaker honoraria from Eli Lilly, Dexcom and Novo Nordisk, receiving license fees from Medtronic, and being director at CamDiab. The remaining authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
(Copyright © 2021 de Beaufort, Pit-ten Cate, Schierloh, Cohen, Boughton, Tauschmann, Allen, Nagl, Fritsch, Yong, Metcalfe, Schaeffer, Fichelle, Thiele, Abt, Faninger, Mader, Slegtenhorst, Ashcroft, Wilinska, Sibayan, Kollman, Hofer, Fröhlich-Reiterer, Kapellen, Acerini, Campbell, Rami-Merhar and Hovorka.)