Bulletin of the National Research Centre (Sep 2019)
Health-related quality of life in a group of Egyptian children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes: relationship to microvascular complications
Abstract
Abstract Background The increased prevalence of type 1 diabetes mellitus in children and adolescents with its complications, especially microvascular ones (retinopathy, nephropathy, and neuropathy) that affect the expectancy of their lives, besides imposing restrictions on their physical, emotional, and social functioning, adversely affecting their quality of life, in turn would lead to worsening of their compliance and adherence to the treatment with subsequent hazards on metabolic control, development, and progression of adverse diabetic complications that might cause multiple organ damage and impose more disease burden and impact the quality of life of the growing young diabetics and their families. Aim The aim of the present study was to assess health-related quality of life of a group of Egyptian children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes in addition to investigate the relation of microvascular complications and other sociodemographic and clinical indicators to their quality of life. Subjects and methods This case-control study was executed in the Diabetes Clinic and in the outpatient clinics, Children’s Hospital, Ain Shams University, and Medical Research Centre of Excellence clinics, June 2013–June 2015, which was carried out on 60 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus, with ages ranged between (8-18) years compared with 60 apparently healthy children matched as regards their age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Results No significant differences between studied diabetic and healthy children (8–12 years) (total generic health-related quality of life score mean = (77.05 ± 14.58 vs. 79.32 ± 11.15, respectively). But there was a significant decrease for studied diabetic adolescents (13–18 years) compared to healthy peers (64.37 ± 14.54 vs. 74.74 ± 13.34, respectively). Microvascular complications impacted the health-related quality of life of type 1 diabetic children and adolescents, the most worsen effect was associated with neuropathy (p < 0.001). Statistically significant negative correlations were found between health-related quality of life domains with all metabolic control parameters, and the strongest correlation was between treatment adherence scale with HbA1c% (r = − 0.941, p ˂ 0.001). Conclusion Health-related quality of life of the studied diabetic children and adolescents was negatively affected by the development of microvascular complications, especially diabetic neuropathy, while positively affected by achieving good metabolic control (HbA1c < 8%).
Keywords
