Emerging adults (EAs) with type 1 diabetes (T1D) often experience challenges in diabetes management, in particular transitioning to financial independence. EAs 18-30 years of age with T1D completed online surveys about diabetes distress and an open-ended query about the most important worry among survey questions. Most of the 287 respondents (89.5%) endorsed "Agree" or "Somewhat agree" to the statement "I worry about the cost of diabetes." Responses did not differ by gender, age, diabetes duration, race/ethnicity, diabetes technology use, student status, income, or insurance status. However, a greater proportion of those not endorsing cost as a substantial burden achieved A1c <7% (92.9%) versus those who were neutral (46.2%) or who endorsed cost as a burden (50.6%) (P = 0.004). Furthermore, in open-ended responses, cost was the most frequently noted worry. Diabetes costs are a major concern for EAs, likely contributing to diabetes distress during this developmental stage, and clinicians should consider discussing diabetes costs with this population.
Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the emotional work of diabetes during emerging adulthood and to explicate the validity of a newly developed measure of diabetes distress (DD) for use with emerging adults living with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM), the Problem Areas in Diabetes-Emerging Adult version (PAID-EA).
During the teenage years, young people with consistently high diabetes distress (DD) or with DD that increased over time showed increases in A1C. Findings suggest that high DD is common and may be a particularly important target for supporting adolescents with type 1 diabetes in obtaining glycemic goals.