Parental Stress, Anxiety and Depression Symptoms Associated with Self-Efficacy in Paediatric Type 1 Diabetes: A Literature Review

Abstract

Background: Parents play a significant role in the management and monitoring of their children’s Type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), being considered a family disease. The current review intends to investigate parental stress, depression and anxiety symptoms associated with self-efficacy referred to paediatric diabetes management. Method: A literature review was carried out using PsycINFO, Web of Science and PubMed where the following terms were considered: diabetes mellitus, paediatric, parent-child relationship, self-efficacy, parenting stress, perceived stress, stress, depression, anxiety. Standing a defined list of inclusion and exclusion criteria, a total of 33 papers were finally included. Results: Findings have shown that parents experience relatively high levels of anxiety, depression and stress symptoms related to managing a child with T1DM and are associated with parental self-efficacy. Parental stress predicts a worsening in the control of HbA1c levels, while parental diabetes-specific distress predicts an increase in children depression symptoms. High parental self-efficacy associates with better monitoring, allowing better adherence and more balanced HbA1c levels in the children. Conclusions: Interventions aimed at fostering social support, improving diabetes management, and decreasing perceived stress, might alleviate parents’ psychological symptoms by focusing on increasing their self-efficacy. Digital interventions might also represent valuable solutions to support parents in the management of paediatric diabetes not presented and substantiated in the main text and should not exaggerate the main conclusions.

Mental Health Outcomes Among Parents of Children With a Chronic Disease During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Role of Parental Burn-Out

“…Partially in line with our hypotheses, parents of children with chronic diseases reported significantly more anxiety, but not more depressive symptoms, compared to parents of healthy children. These findings are in line with other studies reporting high anxiety scores in parents of children with chronic diseases (e.g., Bassi et al, 2020 ; Jones & Reilly, 2016 ; Kelada et al, 2020 ). However, literature on the topic of parental well-being of children with chronic diseases is not univocal (e.g., Kelada et al, 2020 ; Ljungman et al, 2014 ).…”

“…Parents of children suffering from chronic diseases are generally particularly vulnerable for experiencing psychological distress (i.e., depressive symptoms and anxiety) and parenting distress (e.g., Bassi et al, 2020 ; Jones & Reilly, 2016 ; Kelada et al, 2020 ; Ljungman et al, 2014 ). These parents also report lower overall parental quality of life than parents of healthy children ( Goldbeck, 2006 ).…”

NLRP3-Dependent Pyroptosis: A Candidate Therapeutic Target for Depression

“…Depression is a common disabling mental illness. Human susceptibility to depression has changed with variations in lifestyles, such as diet and sleep, and increased social stress (Bassi et al, 2020;Marx et al, 2021;Sweetman et al, 2021). Affluent environments will reduce depressive manifestations, while the majority of depressed patients in low-and middle-income countries do not receive effective treatment (Evans-Lacko et al, 2018;Gu et al, 2021).…”

Resilience Among Parents of Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes: Associated With Fewer Parental Depressive Symptoms and Better Pediatric Glycemic Control

“…In a systematic review, 19% of parents experienced psychological distress lasting 1–4 years after their children were diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes ( 10 ). Bassi ( 11 ) reported that the prevalence of depression among the parents of adolescents with Type 1 diabetes ranged from 13 to 74% in different studies. Evidence from empirical research suggests that parental depressive symptoms and diabetes distress are negatively associated with pediatric glycaemic control ( 12 , 13 ).…”