Post-traumatic Stress Disorder in Children Affected by Type 1 Diabetes and Their Parents

Abstract

Type 1 diabetes is a challenge for children, adolescents, and their families as it affects the quality of life and lifestyle of the whole family context. Diabetes onset and its chronic management could be therefore particularly related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a group of persistent psychological and physiological symptoms due to a traumatic and severe event. The aim of this study was to assess the rate of PTSD in a group of pediatric patients with T1DM and to evaluate the relationship between parental trauma and quality of life. Forty-nine prepubertal children affected by T1DM and their families were consecutively enrolled in the study. Patients and parents were asked to complete two types of questionnaires: (1) The Impact of Event Scale (IES) questionnaire for the evaluation of PTSD. (2) The PedsQL™3.0 Diabetes Module questionnaire to measure diabetes-specific QOL in both children and their parents. Our data suggest that a clinical level of trauma is present in 66.7% of mothers and 65.5% of fathers of T1D children. Parents with medium or high IES Scores demonstrated lower levels of QoL. The results of this study show a high prevalence of acute post-traumatic stress symptoms in parents of prepubertal children with T1DM. This finding is consistent with data from adult diabetic patients. Our data demonstrated also a relation between parents’ level of traumatism and declared QoL scores. Indeed, our data confirm that the duration of diabetes negatively correlates with the QoL by both, parents and patients.