Posted on June 5, 2001 at 1:30 p.m.
BIRMINGHAM, AL — The University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) has received a four-year, $1.3 million grant from the National Institute of Nursing Research to study how parents encourage responsible independence and self-care in adolescents with chronic illnesses such as diabetes. “The study is the first of its kind to look at the development and self care of adolescents with insulin-dependent diabetes in relation to family interactions and to follow these families for an extended period of time,” says Carol Dashiff, Ph.D., professor and chair of nursing graduate studies at UAB.
The study will enroll 274 adolescents, ages 11 to 15, with Type 1 insulin-dependent diabetes. The disease, which affects approximately 1.2 million children in the U.S., requires daily injections of insulin. “If not properly managed, it can lead to serious health problems and can be life threatening,” Dashiff says. “The demands of daily monitoring are stressful for adolescents and parents.”
The study will include a group of young African-Americans with Type 1 diabetes. “This is significant because African-Americans are often not well represented in studies done in this area,” Dashiff says. “It’s important because what fosters responsible independence and self-care among black adolescents may be different than among white adolescents, so we will be looking at cultural differences and what impact they have on the adolescents’ development.”
During home visits researchers will evaluate how the adolescents and their parents discuss and resolve typical adolescent-related issues and diabetes management issues. “This will help us identify some characteristics of families that help facilitate responsible independence and self-care,” Dashiff says. “It will provide us with insight into parents’ and adolescents’ perspectives, how they differ and how these differences may affect development of independence and self-care.”
From the study researchers will develop programs and materials to help parents foster their children’s independence and diabetes control. “Parents of chronically ill children often ask for guidance in making decisions about how much independence to give their adolescents and in what areas,” Dashiff says. “This study will help us develop those guidelines.”