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. 2022 Dec;24(12):915-919.
doi: 10.1089/dia.2022.0170. Epub 2022 Sep 5.

"Fear That One Day I May Not Be Able to Afford Insulin": The Emotional Burden of Diabetes Costs During Emerging Adulthood

Rebecca J Vitale  1   2 , Katherine Wentzell  1 , Lori M B Laffel  1
Affiliations

"Fear That One Day I May Not Be Able to Afford Insulin": The Emotional Burden of Diabetes Costs During Emerging Adulthood

Rebecca J Vitale et al. Diabetes Technol Ther. 2022 Dec.

Abstract

Emerging adults (EAs) with type 1 diabetes (T1D) often experience challenges in diabetes management, in particular transitioning to financial independence. EAs 18-30 years of age with T1D completed online surveys about diabetes distress and an open-ended query about the most important worry among survey questions. Most of the 287 respondents (89.5%) endorsed "Agree" or "Somewhat agree" to the statement "I worry about the cost of diabetes." Responses did not differ by gender, age, diabetes duration, race/ethnicity, diabetes technology use, student status, income, or insurance status. However, a greater proportion of those not endorsing cost as a substantial burden achieved A1c <7% (92.9%) versus those who were neutral (46.2%) or who endorsed cost as a burden (50.6%) (P = 0.004). Furthermore, in open-ended responses, cost was the most frequently noted worry. Diabetes costs are a major concern for EAs, likely contributing to diabetes distress during this developmental stage, and clinicians should consider discussing diabetes costs with this population.

Keywords: Diabetes costs; Diabetes distress; Emerging adults; Type 1 diabetes.

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Conflict of interest statement

No competing financial interests exist.

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