Adolescent Girls’ Medical Adherence to Diabetic Treatments, Essay Example

Adolescence for girls and boys is often a difficult time even when they are healthy. Being diabetic at that age will not make matters easier. Instead, diabetes (or any serious illness) will make worse the difficulties of adolescence, and this intensity will probably spring from both the illness itself and the act of trying to cope with the illness.

What makes diabetes especially difficult for adolescent girls is that the “complex and demanding” (Steed, Cooke, & Newman, 2003) monitoring of their insulin-levels takes patience and discipline and requires careful adherence to a specific diet. Diet is critical because Type 1 diabetes (also known previously as juvenile diabetes) is all about insulin (ADA, 2014). That is the problem. Girls, being increasingly concerned about their weight and body image, are likely to be highly stressed about the subject of what they should eat and what they want to eat. Worse, there is evidence that insulin shots retard growth and increase body fat in girls.

Several problems, divided into “psychological and behavioral factors” and “sociocultural factors” are mentioned in the required text (Leonard Jr., 2003). Included in the psychological/behavioral group are “stress and coping, depression, intentional health-compromising behaviors, and eating disorders”; the sociocultural group consists of “peer pressure and family interaction.” If we combine stress with coping; and intentional health-compromising behaviors and eating disorders, then we have five required problems that might reduce adherence to a treatment program. Of course, successfully handling these problems would increase adherence. So what we are really talking about is failure to manage the disease itself.

Stress can have physical origins, which then shows itself in behavior. And vice versa. Since stress in adolescence is considered normal it goes untreated, leading to depression, which is the next level up, and so on. But what is causing the stress/depression? This paper doesn’t say so, but data from the World Health Organization’s Multinational Project for Childhood Diabetes indicate that type 1 diabetes is rare in most African, American Indian, and Asian populations (NDIC, 2014). This puts the problem into perspective: Type 1 is usually a white disease (which is the opposite of Type 2) and only about 5% of people with diabetes have Type 1 (ADA, 2014). We’re talking about a genetically caused disease, not one caused by environment.

What this probably means is that each adolescent girl with Type 1 and her family face challenges unique to her and them. It comes down to how they can cope with bad genes, not bad behavior that is causing a larger problem. One can’t just say “stop eating junk food” — which might be good enough advice, especially for a Native American girl suffering from Type 2. But the girl with Type 1 may not be eating junk food to begin with. She might not even be overweight. She might even be too thin. And the more “normal” she looks, the harder medical adherence will be for her.

All that work just to be normal.

Reference

ADA. (2014). American Diabetes Association. Retrieved from Type 1 Diabetes: http://www.diabetes.org/diabetes-basics/type-1/

Leonard Jr., J. (2003). Biopsychosocial Factors Affecting Metabolic Control Among Female Adolescents With Type 1 Diabetes. Diabetes Spectrum, 154 -159.

NDIC. (2014, April 2). Retrieved from U.S. Department Of Health And Human Services: http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/overview/#who

Steed, L., Cooke, D., & Newman, S. (2003). A systematic review of psychosocial outcomes following education, self-management and psychological interventions in diabetes mellitus. Patient Education and Counseling, 5-15.