Some Psychological Aspects of T1DM in Children and Adolescents

Abstract

Diabetes mellitus type 1 (T1DM) is a chronic disease with long term consequences dictating daily struggle to maintain a good metabolic control. Children and adolescents with T1DM seem to have inferior psychological adjustment to their normal counterparts, which might be associated with glycemic control and disease duration. The aim of this study is to evaluate the psychological characteristics of children and adolescents with T1DM treated last year in the University Children Hospital in Skopje, Macedonia and to propose some response measures. For psychological evaluation we used CBCL (Child Behavior Check List), GAS (General Anxiety Scale), EPQ (Eysenck Personality Questionnaire) and MMPI-201 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). The results confirmed the following psychological characteristics: mild depression and anxiety, emotional instability, need for social acceptance, as well as the possible psychopathic traits. Suffering for a complex metabolic and chronic illness, these patients need psychological evaluation and intervention in the management.