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Abstract
The purpose of this review is to provide an overview of psychosocial adaptation to chronic illness and disability (CID) with a special focus on type 1 diabetes as it pertains to children and adolescents. Understanding psychosocial adaptation to chronic illness and disability in general provides the medical team and mental health providers basic information regarding the factors impacting adaptation and the focus on type 1 diabetes will provide information regarding the specific factors related to type 1 diabetes in conceptualizing how these factors impact their patients and ultimately designing and implementing effective treatment. The importance of understanding how psychosocial factors impact adapting to type 1 diabetes CID for children and adolescents cannot be stressed enough as physicians are often the first provider these patients visit; additionally many patients may not understand the connection between psychosocial factors and problems with metabolic control of diabetes and not considering seeking out mental health services without the encouragement from the medical team. The necessity of multidisciplinary teams is stressed due to the fact that CID as well as type 1 diabetes impacts the whole person (physiologically, psychologically, psychosocially, and environmentally) and teams need to include professionals who can adequately address all of these factors. Definition, overarching concepts, coping strategies, assessment, and interventions will be discussed.
Keywords: Endocrinology, psychology, disability, chronic illness, children, adolescents
Introduction
Coping and adaptation to chronic illness and disability (CID) is a complex phenomenon to understand for patients, medical and mental health care providers, and an even more complex phenomenon when children and adolescents are the patients (1). The purpose of this review is to provide a global perspective of some of the most common psychosocial characteristics present in children and adolescents as they adapt to chronic illness and disability with a focus on type 1 diabetes as well as discuss definition, overarching concepts, assessment, and treatment and interventions. This is very important in primary care as physicians are usually in contact with children with chronic illness and disability long before they are possibly referred to a psychologist (2).
Chronic illness and disability impact the whole person (physiologically, psychologically, psychosocially, and environmentally). Medical teams need to be able to treat all of the various parts as a whole (not individually) to be most effective...