Psychosocial Characteristics of Diabetic Students at Sporting Students Hospital in Alexandria.

Type 1 diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease that may have an impact on children's psychosocial adjustment. The aim of the present work was to study the psychosocial characteristics of diabetic students and to determine predictors of diabetes control. A cross-sectional study of 150 diabetic students who attended the diabetic school health insurance clinic of Sporting Student's Hospital in Alexandria governorate within a period of one month was conducted. A pre-designed interviewing questionnaire was used to collect--from the child and/or his/her parents--personal data, data about the child social relationships and school and disease characteristics. School adjustment index and stress symptom index were used to assess the school performance and the stress symptoms respectively. The result revealed that 34% of the diabetic students were maladjusted to school and 31.3% were symptomatic based on the stress index. Generally speaking, diabetic children reported good relationship to peers (65.3%), parents (57.3%) and siblings (51.3%), most of them have good friendship (82%) and those involved in one or more kind of hobby were about three fourth of all. Both age (P<0.05), sex (P<0.05), social class (P<0.05), disease duration (P<0.05) and stress symptoms (P<0.05) were all significantly associated with the disease control. However after adjustment for other variables, students of low social class families (OR=5.1, p<0.01) and those of longer disease duration (6-10 years) (OR=7.9, p<0.05) were significant predictors of diabetes control. In conclusion diabetes per se might have no significant association with academic performance or social relationship. Students with large diabetic duration-especially those of low social class families--are at increased risk of suboptimal glycaemic control and should be targeted for interventional strategies.