Relationship among Parental Personality Characteristics, Family Function and HbAlc in type I Diabetic Children

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the relationship among parental personality characteristics and family function to HbAlc (metabolic control) in type I diabetic children and comparative study of parental personality characteristics and family function between parents with diabetic children and parents with healthy children. For this purpose 211 parents of 116 children with type Idiabetes and 220 parents of 149 healthy children were chosen by random sampling over a six months period. Parents completed NEO Personality Questionnaire, Family Assessment Device (FAD) and questions on HbAlc, time of test and the name of relevant laboratories. Data were analyzed by SPSS. Stepwise multiple regression analyses showed significant positive relationship between neuroticism of mothers to HbAlc in diabetic children and significant positive relationship between family dysfunction in affective involvement dimension to HbAlc in diabetic children. Multiple variance analysis revealed that parents with diabetic children were higher neuroticism and lower extroversion than parents with healthy children. In addition, parents with diabetic children had family dysfunction in roles, affective responsiveness, and affective involvement dimensions.