Suicide Risk in Youth and Young Adults with Type 1 Diabetes: a Review of the Literature and Clinical Recommendations for Prevention

5. Facilitating Positive Health Behaviors and Well-being to Improve Health Outcomes: Standards of Care in Diabetes-2025

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) "Standards of Care in Diabetes" includes the ADA's current clinical practice recommendations and is intended to provide the components of diabetes care, general treatment goals and guidelines, and tools to evaluate quality of care. Members of the ADA Professional Practice Committee, an interprofessional expert committee, are responsible for updating the Standards of Care annually, or more frequently as warranted. For a detailed description of ADA standards, statements, and reports, as well as the evidence-grading system for ADA's clinical practice recommendations and a full list of Professional Practice Committee members, please refer to Introduction and Methodology. Readers who wish to comment on the Standards of Care are invited to do so at professional.diabetes.org/SOC.

Risk Factors for Suicidal Behavior in Youth and the Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Retrospective Case-Control Study

Background

Suicide and self-harm remain critical concerns in youth. This study compares patients with and without suicidality or self-harm (SOSH), suicidality (SI/SA), and COVID-19 to investigate 53 pre-existing risk factors associated with suicidality in patients with and without COVID-19.

Methods

A retrospective case-control study was conducted using TriNetX data from 111,631,250 patients across 78 healthcare networks. This study included patients aged 0-21 with any healthcare visit between January 20, 2020, and May 11, 2023.

Outcomes

Comparison groups shared many risk factors, with specific differences. Children with SOSH and COVID-19 had higher odds of support group problems, personality disorder, thyroid disorders, and insomnia; children with SOSH without COVID-19 had higher odds of upbringing problems, anxiety and nonpsychotic disorders, sleep disorders, and autism. Adolescents with SOSH and COVID-19 had higher odds of parent-child conflict; adolescents with SOSH without COVID-19 had higher odds of education and literacy problems. Children with SI/SA and COVID-19 had higher odds of support group problems, personality disorders, and asthma; children with SI/SA without COVID-19 had higher odds of autism. Adolescents with SI/SA and COVID-19 had higher odds of asthma. The effect size of COVID-19 was not significant. SOSH was associated with increased odds of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in children (OR 2.42) and adolescents (OR 1.88).

Interpretation

This study confirms known SOSH risk factors and demonstrates their association with suicidality. We observed a significant association between SOSH and preceding SARS-CoV-2 infection. This underscores the need to focus on suicide risk in youth affected by COVID-19.

Identifying depression, diabetes distress, and suicidality among adolescents with diabetes

This study explored the frequency of adolescents with diabetes who endorse suicidality on the Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9) with varying degrees of depression scores. Additionally, compared whether diabetes distress levels from the Problem Areas in Diabetes-Teen (PAID-T) assessment tool is associated with and without suicidal ideation. Χ2 analysis was used to assess differences in subjects with or without suicidal ideation based on depression severity. Since all the data were nonparametrically distributed (Shapiro-Wilk test, p < .05), Kruskal-Wallis test assessed differences in continuous variables. Overall, 27 of 355 adolescents screened endorsed suicidal ideation. Both PHQ-9 [13 (9-17.8) vs 1 (0-4.5)] and PAID-T [88 (61.8-104.5) vs 40 (30-58.8)] scores were significantly higher in patients with suicidal ideation. The frequency of suicidal ideation increased with the severity of depression. The frequency of severe depression was higher in adolescents with type 2 diabetes (n = 48) than in type 1, but there was no difference in suicidality. Adolescents with no demonstrable or minimal depression can still have potential suicidal ideation. Suicidality is a separate construct that should be screened routinely and apart from any measures screening for distress or adjustment disorders associated with adolescents experiencing life-long chronic conditions in a healthcare follow-up setting.

Pediatric suicide: Review of a preventable tragedy

Concepts of suicide are explored in this issue with a focus on suicide in children and adolescents. The epidemiology of pediatric suicide in the United States is reviewed; also, risk and protective factors, as well as prevention strategies, are discussed. Suicide in the pediatric athlete and the potential protective effect of exercise are examined. In addition, this analysis addresses the beneficial role of psychological management as well as current research on pharmacologic treatment and brain stimulation procedures as part of comprehensive pediatric suicide prevention. Though death by suicide in pediatric persons has been and remains a tragic phenomenon, there is much that clinicians, other healthcare professionals, and society itself can accomplish in the prevention of pediatric suicide as well as the management of suicidality in our children and adolescents.

Suicidal Ideation, Suicide Attempts, and Suicide Deaths in Adolescents and Young Adults With Type 1 Diabetes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

BACKGROUND

Evidence is lacking on the risk of suicide-related behaviors (suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, suicide death) in youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

PURPOSE

We aimed to 1) determine the prevalence of suicidal ideation, suicide attempts, and suicide deaths in adolescents and young adults (AYA) with T1D aged 10-24 years; 2) compare suicide-related behavior prevalence in youth with and without T1D; and 3) identify factors associated with suicide-related behaviors.

DATA SOURCES

A systematic search was conducted in MEDLINE, Embase, and PsycInfo up to 3 September 2023.

STUDY SELECTION

We included observational studies where investigators reported the prevalence of suicide-related behaviors among AYA aged 10-24 years with T1D.

DATA EXTRACTION

We collected data on study characteristics, data on prevalence of suicide-related behaviors, and data on associated factors.

DATA SYNTHESIS

We included 31 studies. In AYA with versus without T1D, pooled prevalence of suicidal ideation was 15.4% (95% CI 10.0-21.7; n = 18 studies) vs. 11.5% (0.4-33.3; n = 4), respectively, and suicide attempts 3.5% (1.3-6.7; n = 8) vs. 2.0% (0.0-6.4; n = 5). Prevalence of suicide deaths ranged from 0.04% to 4.4% among youth with T1D. Difficulties with T1D self-management were frequently reported to be associated with higher rates of suicide-related behaviors. However, findings on the association of glycemic levels and suicide-related behaviors were inconsistent.

LIMITATIONS

There was a considerable level of heterogeneity in meta-analysis of both suicidal ideation and suicide attempts.

CONCLUSIONS

Suicidal ideation and suicide attempts are prevalent in AYA with T1D. Current evidence does not suggest that these rates are higher among AYA with T1D than rates among those without.

5. Facilitating Positive Health Behaviors and Well-being to Improve Health Outcomes: Standards of Care in Diabetes-2024

The American Diabetes Association (ADA) "Standards of Care in Diabetes" includes the ADA's current clinical practice recommendations and is intended to provide the components of diabetes care, general treatment goals and guidelines, and tools to evaluate quality of care. Members of the ADA Professional Practice Committee, an interprofessional expert committee, are responsible for updating the Standards of Care annually, or more frequently as warranted. For a detailed description of ADA standards, statements, and reports, as well as the evidence-grading system for ADA's clinical practice recommendations and a full list of Professional Practice Committee members, please refer to Introduction and Methodology. Readers who wish to comment on the Standards of Care are invited to do so at professional.diabetes.org/SOC.

Comparing youth with and without type 1 diabetes on perceived parenting and peer functioning: a propensity weighting approach

The premise of this study was to gain more insight into whether type 1 diabetes (T1D) can impact how youth perceive parents and peers. To address limitations of previous observational studies comparing youth with T1D to control youth, propensity weighting was used to mimic a randomized controlled trial. A total of 558 youth with T1D and 426 control youth (14-26y) completed questionnaires on parental responsiveness, psychological control, overprotection, friend support, extreme peer orientation, and a host of background and psychological functioning variables. The groups were statistically weighted to become as comparable as possible except for disease status. The analysis plan and hypotheses were preregistered on the open science framework. Youth with T1D perceived their mothers to be more overprotective, perceived fewer friend support, and were less extremely oriented toward peers than control youth. There were no group differences for paternal overprotection and paternal and maternal responsiveness and psychological control. Mothers of youth with T1D seem at risk to practice overprotective parenting and clinicians could play an important role in making mothers aware of this risk. However, the absence of group differences for the maladaptive parenting dimension of psychological control and adaptive dimension of responsiveness are reassuring and testify to the resilient nature of youth with T1D and their families. Additionally, there is accumulating evidence that T1D could interfere with engaging in supportive friendships.