Psychosocial and psychopathologic influences on management and control of insulin-dependent diabetes

The objective of this research was to explore the relationship of psychosocial variables to management and control of insulin-dependent diabetes, as measured by a scale of reported behavioral adherence and by glycosylated hemoglobin, respectively. The method includes a relatively large sample (127 subjects) drawn from a clinic, a broad range of psychosocial variables (depression, anxiety, family process, health locus of control), and documented reliability and validity of psychosocial measurement (alpha coefficients ranging from .63 to .95). The results show that both anxiety and depression have weak positive correlations with blood sugar. Family process variables also are weakly correlated with blood sugar. The measure of behavioral adherence is moderately correlated with blood sugar. The life stage of the diabetic appears to affect these relationships markedly. The conclusion is that there is no broad strong association of psychosocial variables with blood sugar but that there may be subgroups of diabetics, especially adolescents with recent onset, for whom the relationships may be more powerful.