ESPE Abstracts

Background: Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is defined as a patient’s subjective perception related to the satisfaction with own health. There is no enough data on HRQOL of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D) living in Turkey.

Objective: To evaluate HRQOL in children and adolescents with T1D compared with healthy controls in Turkey, and to identify HRQOL determinants.

Method: A total of 133 children and adolescents with T1D aged 6–18, and 133 matched healthy peers participated. KINDL (KINDer Lebensqualitätsfragebogen) quality of life questionnaire was applied to all subjects. In addition, the patients completed a second questionnaire for the disease state. The patients’ hospital records were examined to identify possible factors affecting HRQOL including age, gender, duration of diabetes, HbA1c, and the frequency of hypoglycemia and diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA).

Results: Mean age was 12.5±2.8 years, 54% were girls and mean duration of diabetes was 4.3±2.7 years. Mean HbA1c was 9.1±2.0, but no patient had overt diabetes complication. Total HRQOL scores of the patients were lower than those of healthy peers (P=0.044). Sub-dimension scores including physical well-being, emotional well-being and self esteem were lower in the patient group compared to the control group (P=0.008, 0.032, and 0.003 respectively). However, there were no statistically significant differences regarding family, school and friend sub-dimensions between two groups. Total HRQOL scores of both diabetic and healthy adolescents (aged 12–18) were poorer than those of children (aged 6–11) (P=0.01). Lower HRQOL scores were significantly associated with longer duration of diabetes, older age (being adolescent) and experience of DKA.

Conclusion: Our study showed that T1D among Turkish children and adolescents had negative impact on physical and emotional well-being, rather than social well-being. HRQOL was related to older age, duration of diabetes and experience of DKA, but not to gender, metabolic control and hypoglycemia in our population.