NEWS RELEASE

[FOR EMBARGOED RELEASE Wednesday April 7]
Contact: Pamela King: 949-202-9726 (cell); 801-585-1501 (office)

Parents and friends: key to long-term health for adolescents with chronic illness

SEATTLE, WA - “If we could improve the quality of the parent-adolescent relationship and increase parents’ monitoring of adolescents’ diabetes management, we could improve adolescents’ adherence to the Type 1 diabetes regimen and, subsequently, their long-term health,” reports University of Utah researcher Pamela King, PhD. King is lead author of a longitudinal study examining diabetes management among adolescents with Type 1 diabetes. She, and other researchers studying chronic illness management among adolescents, will present their findings this week at the annual meeting of the Society of Behavioral Medicine in Seattle.

Adherence to the doctor-recommended Type 1 diabetes management regimen typically declines across adolescence, which puts adolescents at increased risk of such poor long-term health outcomes as blindness, nerve disease, kidney disease, stroke, and heart disease. King and her colleagues found that at the same time adherence is declining, parental involvement in adolescents’ diabetes management is also declining. Their two-year study revealed a decline in three markers of parental involvement across adolescence: a decline in mothers’ and fathers’ monitoring of adolescents’ diabetes care behaviors, a decline in mothers’ and fathers’ acceptance of the adolescents, and a decline in mothers’ and fathers’ assistance with diabetes management tasks. Dr. King explains, “In particular, declines in mothers’ acceptance and declines in rates at which mothers and fathers are monitoring adolescents’ diabetes management behaviors are associated with declines in adherence.”

Conflict with peers, poor quality of life, and coming from a single-parent family all contribute to the decline in glycemic control (inability to control blood sugar levels) that occurs during adolescence among those with Type 1 diabetes, reports Vicki Helgeson, PhD, a researcher at Carnegie Mellon University. Helgeson notes that research indicates glycemic control during adolescence predicts long-term health outcomes, meaning that poor metabolic control is associated with poor long-term health outcomes, but good control is predictive of positive health outcomes. “Adolescents with poor control also tested their blood sugar less frequently and attended fewer clinic appointments during the five-year study,” Helgeson reports.

Pamela King’s co-authors include Cynthia Berg, PhD, University of Utah, Jorie Butler, PhD, University of Utah, and Deborah Wiebe, PhD, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Funding for the study was provided by a grant from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

Vicki Helgeson’s co-authors include Pamela Snyder, MA, Carnegie Mellon University, Howard Seltman, MD, PhD, Carnegie Mellon University, Dorothy Becker, MBBCh, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, Oscar Escobar, MD, Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, and Linda Siminerio, PhD, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

The Society of Behavioral Medicine is a multidisciplinary organization of clinicians, educators and scientists dedicated to promoting the study of the interactions of behavior with biology and the environment and the application of that knowledge to improve the health and well being of individuals, families, communities and populations. www.sbm.org

Editor’s notes:
This study was presented during the 2010 Annual Meeting and Scientific Session of the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM), April 7 – 10, in Seattle, Washington. It does not necessarily reflect the policies or the opinion of the SBM.

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