Associations between parental stress and parental socio-educational practices in fathers/mothers of children with and without type 1 diabetes mellitus

Abstract

In this research of correlational and comparative design, we examined the levels of parental stress and the parental socio-educational practices of 135 fathers/mothers of children without chronic disease (control group) and with type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM; clinical group). Therefore, the groups were stratified according to the reported level of parental stress (low or high stress), and significant differences were found between them, except between the control and clinical groups with low stress. The multinomial logistic regression also revealed significant differences between the groups regarding the use of socio-educational practices of affection, education and discipline, in which the fathers/mothers of the control group with low parental stress presented higher chances of using these practices. At the end, it is believed that the results can help interventions with fathers/mothers who seek to minimize parental stress and enhance the use of positive parental practices, and promote a better glycemic control of the son/daughter with T1DM.