Mindfulness and fear of hypoglycaemia in parents of children with Type 1 diabetes: results from Diabetes MILES Youth - The Netherlands

AIMS

To identify the sociodemographic and clinical correlates of fear of hypoglycaemia among parents of children (aged 4-18 years) with Type 1 diabetes and to examine the relationships between parental fear of hypoglycaemia, mindfulness and mindful parenting.

METHODS

Sociodemographic, self-reported clinical and psychological data were extracted from the cross-sectional Diabetes MILES Youth - The Netherlands dataset. Questionnaires included the Hypoglycaemia Fear Survey - Parent Worry (parental fear of hypoglycaemia), the Freiburg Mindfulness Inventory - Short version (mindfulness) and the Interpersonal Mindfulness in Parenting Scale (mindful parenting).

RESULTS

A total of 421 parents (359 mothers) participated. Hierarchical linear regression analyses showed that greater parental fear of hypoglycaemia was related to younger parental age, low educational level, non-Dutch nationality, more frequent blood glucose monitoring, and less general mindfulness. Adding mindful parenting to the model negated the previous contribution of general mindfulness. In this model, lower mindful parenting was related to greater parental fear of hypoglycaemia. In particular, parents with an increased ability to be less judgemental of themselves as parents and less reactive to emotions within parenting interactions reported less fear of hypoglycaemia. In total, 21% of the variance in parental fear of hypoglycaemia was explained.

CONCLUSION

Parental fear of hypoglycaemia was associated largely with parental characteristics, including non-modifiable sociodemographics (i.e. age, education, nationality) and modifiable psychological factors (i.e. mindful parenting). These findings suggest that it is important to further explore mindfulness-based interventions for parents to reduce fear of hypoglycaemia next to interventions to reduce hypoglycaemia.

Paediatric parenting stress in fathers and mothers of young children with Type 1 diabetes: a longitudinal study

AIM

To compare levels of paediatric parenting stress in the fathers and mothers of young children with Type 1 diabetes and study the variation in this stress over time.

METHODS

One hundred and twelve parents (56 mothers and 56 fathers) of young children (0-7 years) with Type 1 diabetes participated in this study. They completed the Pediatric Inventory for Parents to assess paediatric parenting stress (frequency and difficulty scores on the Communication, Emotional Distress, Medical Care and Role Functioning subscales and Total Score); 44 mothers (79%) and 31 fathers (55%) completed the questionnaire again, 1 year later. Independent and paired sample t-tests were used to examine the differences between fathers and mothers and the changes over time. Cohen's d effect sizes were also calculated.

RESULTS

Mothers scored significantly higher than fathers on the stress subscales for Communication frequency and difficulty, Emotional Distress frequency and difficulty, Medical Care frequency and Total Score frequency and difficulty (d ranged from -0.44 to -0.56). Furthermore, fathers reported a decrease in Medical Care frequency (d = 0.10) and an increase in Emotional Distress difficulty (d = -0.32) and Total Score difficulty (d = -0.29), whereas mothers reported a decrease in Emotional Distress frequency, Medical Care frequency and Total Score frequency (d ranged from 0.31 to 0.66) over a 1-year period.

CONCLUSIONS

These results show that within families with a young child with Type 1 diabetes, the burden of care increases in fathers and decreases in mothers, suggesting that fathers assume more responsibility for care of their child with Type 1 diabetes as the child grows.