Impact of mothers’ knowledge and coping strategies on glycemic control of Diabetic children Ain Shams University hospital, 2018

Background Type 1 diabetes trends in Egyptian children have been increased in the past two decades. This study aimed to: a) Determine diabetes-specific knowledge level of diabetic children’s mothers. b) Measure maternal diabetes-related stress. c) Identify different coping strategies of the mothers in response to their children’s illness. d) Determine the effect of the level of mothers’ diabetes specific knowledge, their score of stress, and their coping strategy on glycemic control of their diabetic children. Methods A cross sectional study was conducted in the outpatient clinic for diabetic children at a University hospital between February and August, 2018 in Cairo, Egypt. A Systematic random sample of 104 mothers of diabetic children aged between 2 to 14 years was taken. Diabetes-specific knowledge was measured by using the Diabetes Knowledge questionnaire-24 .Stress and coping strategies were measured by the Ways of coping questionnaire.Hba1c levels of their children were taken from medical records. Results The study showed that approximately two-thirds of the mothers (61.5%) had good diabetes-specific knowledge levels, 45.2% of them had high levels of diabetes-related stress. The most common adopted coping strategy by the mothers was acceptance of the disease. Glycemic control of the child was negatively correlated with positive thinking about the disease (r=-.2, p=.042) and acceptance of the disease (r= -.3, p=.002).While, it was positively correlated with cognitive restructure (r=.262, p=.007) and emotional numbing (r=.2, p=.042). There was no significant relation between maternal diabetes-specific knowledge levels, their stress levels and Hba1c levels of their children. Conclusions mothers who were able to adopt positive coping strategies such as: acceptance of their children’s disease and positively think about it, might maintain a better glycemic control in their children.