Psychosocial problems and anxiety of adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus during transition process

Type I diabetes mellitus (DM-I)is the most frequently observed chronic disease in childhood, requiring prolonged metabolic monitoring and regular check-ups that can be quite demanding for the caregivers, medical team and, ultimately, the children themselves.The most important factor behind the challenges in monitoring and controlling diabetes is that every age group necessitates separate areas of expertise. It is especially important for adolescent patients, their families and medical team, for instance, to adjust to and take necessary precautions regarding changing caring conditions when proceeding from childcare to adult care.This study focused on identifying psychosocial problems faced by late adolescents moving on to young adulthood, and employed a combination of quantitative as well as qualitative techniques in data gathering during June-July, 2016. Tools for data gathering included interview forms, Beck Depression Inventory (BDI),State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) and in-depth interviewing. Study sample involved 16 voluntary adolescent patients with DM-I, who underwent regular check-ups, finished advanced carbohydrate counting training in both individual and groupsettings, were using insulin pumps (9 out of 16; 56.2%) or multiple daily insulin regimens (7 out of 16; 43.7%), and were aged between 16 and 24 years old. Researchers directed various questions to the study group and recorded answers in audio; then,these answers were transcribed into print-out forms which were eventually analysed with descriptive statistics, involving content analysis as well as assignment of frequencies and percentage distributions.Content analysis was done by grouping data into 5 themes, 13 main categories and 52 thematic sections. According to the BDI data 25.0% of participants demonstrated identifiable depression profiles, and STAI TX-I and TX-II forms demonstrated identifiable anxiety profiles in 67.0% and 68.7% of participants, respectively. Normative assessment of content analysis findings were in line with the indications of findings, which means thatadolescents experience a number of problems in various areasand topics when proceeding to adult care sections. Findings of this study suggest that well organized education programmes on the transition from child to adult care are essential for late adolescent patients with DM-I; and with adequate preparations the anxiety levels these patients are currently suffering can be ameliorated, even eliminated.Transition protocols and consultants need to be implemented in child and adolescent care to support mutual understanding and dialogue. This means that a transition polyclinic service needs to be formed to fill the gap between child and adult care services, also to conduct medical monitoring of transition patients.Research findings were discussed with respect to current literature on the subject. Keywords:Type I diabetes mellitus, chronic disease, adolescence, transition to adulthood