Detangling Associations Between Maternal Depressive Symptoms and Diabetes Relationship Distress With Adolescents' HbA1c

Objective: Previous research in families of children with type 1 diabetes demonstrates that maternal depressive symptoms are a known risk factor for poor diabetes outcomes. We sought to examine whether maternal diabetes relationship distress or maternal depressive symptoms were more strongly associated with adolescent glycemic outcomes.

Methods: Analyses were conducted using data from mothers who consented to screen for a behavioral intervention. The screener included the Patient Health Questionnaire and the Parent Diabetes Distress Scale, Parent/Teen Relationship Distress subscale. Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) was extracted from adolescents' medical records.

Results: Our sample consisted of 390 maternal caregivers of adolescents with type 1 diabetes aged 11-17. Screening data revealed that 35% of mothers reported clinically significant diabetes distress related to their relationship with their adolescents, and 14% of mothers reported clinically significant depressive symptoms. The adolescents of mothers who reported diabetes relationship distress had significantly higher mean HbA1c levels (9.7 ± 2.2%) compared to those whose mothers were not distressed (8.2 ± 1.8%, d = .72). Similarly, adolescents whose mothers reported clinically significant depressive symptoms had higher mean HbA1c levels (9.6 ± 2.4%) than those whose mothers were not depressed (8.6 ± 2.0%, d = .48). After adjusting for clinical and demographic factors, mothers' reports of diabetes relationship distress were more strongly associated with adolescents' HbA1c than maternal depressive symptoms.

Conclusions: Our findings suggest that screening for maternal distress-particularly distress related to the caregiver-adolescent relationship-could match families with psychosocial support or other resources to improve both psychosocial and glycemic outcomes.