Resilience and Diabetes Distress at 3 Months Following Diagnosis Predict A1C Trajectories in Youth With Type 1 Diabetes: An Argument for Early Intervention

Abstract

Objective: Youth and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) are at risk for poor health outcomes. Understanding if psychological factors shortly following diagnosis, such as diabetes distress and resilience, predict glycated hemoglobin (A1C) trajectories may help inform both optimal timing and content of psychosocial interventions for youth with T1D.

Methods: Youth and adolescents (N = 34) with newly diagnosed T1D completed distress and resilience measures at baseline and 3 months following diagnosis. Using multilevel modeling, we predicted A1C trajectories up to 3 years following diagnosis.

Results: We found that in separate models, higher 3-month diabetes distress and lower 3-month resilience predicted larger increases in A1C years 1-3 following diagnosis.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that targeting resilience and diabetes distress within 3 months following diagnosis has implications for the yearly rate of A1C increase up to 3 years later.

Keywords: distress; resilience; type 1 diabetes.