Personality, coping and type 1 diabetes management in children.
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Individual differences impacting diabetes management, distress and coping in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
IRAS ID
230025
Contact name
Joachim Stoeber
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
University of Kent
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 7 months, 0 days
Research summary
The current research proposes to adopt a longitudinal correlational design, to determine whether perfectionism -characterized by a ‘striving for flawlessness and setting exceedingly high standards for performance accompanied by tendencies for overly critical evaluations of one’s behaviour’ (Flett & Hewitt, 2002) - can predict changes in diabetes management, coping and level of distress over time in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes.
Research has shown that perfectionism is important for understanding health outcomes due to its relationship with health behaviours. Above 38.6% of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes are exceeding recommended blood-glucose targets by not engaging in health-promoting behaviours (Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, 2017) and so are increasing their risk of developing health complications that can be fatal or cause disability (National Health Service, 2016). Unfortunately, only one empirical study has investigated perfectionism and stress in adolescents with type 1 diabetes (Powers, Richter, Ackard, & Craft, 2017) whereas there is no research on how perfectionism relates to children and adolescents diabetes management, stress and coping. Understanding this relationship may help in improving professional clinical practice and support provided to children and adolescents to optimise their health outcomes.
Children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes, aged 10-19, from the Paediatric Diabetes Service at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Hospital will be recruited to participate in this study.Participants will be approached in the waiting room prior to their routine clinic appointment and asked to sit in a quiet room to fill in a few questionnaires (demographic, dispositional perfectionism, perfectionistic self-presentation, diabetes distress and coping) taking between 20-30 minutes to complete. Participants will complete questionnaires again at their routine follow up clinic appointment (3-4 months later). Participants will be thanked, and debriefed at time 2. Participants at time 1 who did not attend time 2 will be followed up and debriefed. Participants will also be informed of the results by post once the data has been analysed.
REC name
London - Westminster Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
17/LO/1617
Date of REC Opinion
7 Nov 2017
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion