Introduction
Youth with type 1 diabetes (T1D) experience dramatic reductions in glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels after initiation of insulin therapy,1 but glycemic levels tend to increase in many youth over the next 12–24 months.2 Prior studies have addressed associations between increasing glycemic levels and both loss of residual beta cell function (also known as the ‘honeymoon period’) and the onset of puberty in youth.3 4 Yet few studies have examined the relationship between parent/child factors and longitudinal child glycemic levels in the first 24 months after families establish diabetes care, a period that might reflect the experiences and outcomes of children with recent-onset T1D.
The recent-onset period of T1D is a unique time for parents and children.5 First, this period requires rapid knowledge and skill acquisition for T1D management in parents and children, including glucose monitoring, insulin administration, and carbohydrate counting. Second, it is a period of T1D when children are often vulnerable to wide fluctuations in their blood glucose levels because of residual beta cell function.1 According to international guidelines,6 it is recommended for parents of children with recent-onset T1D to oversee and even complete much of the daily T1D management on behalf of their child, which could underscore the importance of examining parent/child factors as they relate to children’s glycemia. For families of youth with T1D who are beyond 24 months postdiagnosis, studies suggest that diabetes-specific family conflict may be an important parent/child factor to include when examining child glycemic levels.7–13 Diabetes-specific family conflict is a construct that reflects how much a parent and child with T1D argue about T1D management.14 Related, it may be important to include a measure of either youth or parent engagement with T1D care to assess how often parents or youth are participating in T1D management.12 15 There are many cross-sectional studies conducted in adolescents with T1D that report associations between higher diabetes-specific family conflict and suboptimal youth engagement in T1D care and HbA1c.9–12 15 There is also a study conducted in families of adolescents with T1D which found a longitudinal association between diabetes-specific family conflict and youth HbA1c that was partially mediated by youth engagement in T1D care.16
As a possible explanation for why diabetes-specific family conflict could relate to T1D engagement and youth HbA1c, it may be that parent–child conflict around diabetes self-care tasks and shared responsibility of those tasks impedes parents’ beneficial involvement and collaboration with their youth’s T1D care, leading to suboptimal HbA1c levels.8 15 In this way, diabetes-specific family conflict, which is increasingly recognized as a potentially modifiable factor in diabetes management, could also be an important clinical target for intervention.7 8 10 15 For families of younger children with T1D and families of children with recent-onset T1D, we know far less about how diabetes-specific family conflict may relate to suboptimal T1D engagement or child HbA1c and this could represent a critical gap in knowledge related to the clinical management of these families.
Therefore, this study expands on previous literature by investigating the association between family conflict, parent engagement in child T1D care, and HbA1c in a sample of children recently diagnosed with T1D. Compared with prior studies, the patient cohort examined here is younger (mean age of 7 years), closer to their T1D diagnosis (within 12 months), and the study design includes a longer follow-up period (up to 27 months) to assure data collection beyond the recent-onset period. We specifically selected a measure of parent engagement in child T1D care versus child engagement because we anticipated parents would play a significant role in their child’s T1D care. Precisely, we hypothesized that parents would report diabetes-specific family conflict despite their child’s young age and minimal time since T1D onset and that increasing family conflict over time would associate with decreasing parent engagement in child T1D care and increasing child HbA1c levels.