Self-management development in children and adolescents with diabetes: The role of maternal self-efficacy and conflict

Abstract

The overall purpose of this study was to investigate maternal self-efficacy and its relationship to maternal perception of the child's self-management of diabetes. The influence of conflict between mother and child was also examined. One hundred and four mothers of children, ages 8 to 17 years, who were attending summer diabetes camp, were asked to rate their own and their child's abilities to manage the child's diabetes. Overall, the mothers expressed a high degree of self-efficacy in managing their child's diabetes and perceived their children as average or above in managing their own diabetes when compared with agemates with diabetes. Furthermore, mother's level of self-efficacy was significantly positively related to their perceptions of their child's self-management. In addition, almost one third (30%) of the mothers reported experiencing interpersonal conflict regarding how much responsibility the child should assume in managing their own diabetes. Mothers who rated their child's level of independence as low were three times more likely to report experiencing conflict. In the vast majority of cases, the child was the primary source of conflict. When hierarchical logistic regression was used to multivariately model children's independence, conflict with the child remained a significant predictor, above and beyond background, demographic, and important conceptual variables, including self-efficacy.