Protective Factors in Young Children With Type 1 Diabetes

Objective To characterize protective factors in young children with type 1 diabetes, and evaluate associations among child protective factors and indicators of diabetes resilience, including better child and parent psychosocial functioning and glycemic control. Methods Parents of 78 young children with type 1 diabetes reported on child protective factors, child quality of life, parent depressive symptoms, and disease-specific parenting stress. A1c values were collected from medical records. Results Young children with type 1 diabetes were rated as having similar levels of protective factors as normative samples. Greater child protective factors were associated with indicators of diabetes resilience, including higher child quality of life and lower parent depressive symptoms and parenting stress. Regression analyses demonstrated that child protective factors were associated with 16% of the variance in parent-reported depressive symptoms. Conclusions Attention to child protective factors can enhance understanding of adjustment to type 1 diabetes and may have implications for intervention.