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Psychological interventions for adherence, metabolic control, and coping with stress in adolescents with type 1 diabetes: a systematic review

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Abstract

Background

The aim of this review was to summarize and identify the variations in the effectiveness of psychological interventions on adherence, metabolic control, and coping with stress in adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1D).

Methods

An electronic search of literature was performed using PubMed (NLM), Embase (Ovid), CINAHL Plus (EBSCOhost), PsycINFO (Ovid), and Google Scholar. The search was limited to include articles reported the effect of one of the psychological interventions: cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), coping skills training (CST), stress management, or psychotherapy intervention. The report included peer-reviewed articles published in English from January 1990 until May 2019 in adolescents with T1D, and summarizes the results of 24 studies that met the inclusion criteria.

Results

Psychological interventions showed differential effects on adherence, metabolic control, and coping with stress in adolescents with T1D. Behavioral interventions using principles of CBT appear to have a superior positive effect on regimen adherence compared with other types of psychological protocols. In contrast, metabolic control was significantly improved with the implementation of CST and some forms of CBT. Stress management and psychotherapy interventions showed significant promises for adolescents to cope with their diabetes-related daily stressors.

Conclusions

However, the findings may add some promises to diabetes management in adolescents, additional research to understand the effect of these interventions is needed.

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Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Contributions

YA performed the background and literature review, searched the databases and performed study selection, performed data extraction, carried out the synthesis of the results, took the lead in finalizing the manuscript with critical feedback from HG and NA with helping in putting the manuscript in its final shape, and contributed in presenting data in evidence tables. NA set the inclusion and exclusion criteria, searched the databases and performed study selection, performed quality assessment, carried out the synthesis of the results, and contributed in presenting data in evidence tables. HG contributed to all phases of requested revisions with validation of the extracted data and search strategy. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Yousef M. Aljawarneh.

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Ethical approval for this research was waived by its nature.

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Aljawarneh, Y.M., Al-Qaissi, N.M. & Ghunaim, H.Y. Psychological interventions for adherence, metabolic control, and coping with stress in adolescents with type 1 diabetes: a systematic review. World J Pediatr 16, 456–470 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12519-020-00352-6

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