Parents’ attitude impacts kids’ diabetes control

Diabetic school-age children whose parents perceive them as quite capable of keeping on top of their disease actually have poorer control of blood sugar than kids whose parents are less confident in their children’s ability, a survey suggests.

“Some parents may perceive their children to be competent enough to manage their diabetes, and give them more responsibility for monitoring and treatment, when they are not yet fully prepared,” warn doctors from the UK.

Dr. H. M. Pattison, from Aston University in Birmingham, and associates asked 51 parents, mostly mothers, of children 6 to 12 years of age with insulin-dependent diabetes to rate their child’s competence and their own competence in managing the disease. The investigators compared these ratings with the children’s average annual hemoglobin A1c level—a measure of glucose control.

They report in the Archives of Disease in Childhood that higher levels of confidence and “self-efficacy” among parents were not associated with better blood sugar control “as anticipated.”

On the contrary, children of parents who perceived them as more competent to self-manage their disease, and who perceived diabetes as less serious, had poorer control of their blood sugar.

Having confidence in one’s ability to manage a disease is a positive health belief in many ways, but in this case it may have “counterproductive effects” on blood sugar control, the authors note.

Diabetes has a major impact on family life, and higher levels of confidence in managing it may be one way that families cope with the disease and try to minimize the effect it has on the family, “even at the expense of good glycemic control,” Pattison and colleagues warn.

SOURCE: Archives of Disease in Childhood, June 2006.

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