Taking care of children with type 1 diabetes mellitus: informal care-takers’ ideas

Abstract

The Health Ministry defines Diabetes mellitus as a multiple etiology syndrome caused by lack of insulin and insulin incapability to achieve result. This pathology is acquiring increasingly greater proportions among the population. Current analysis investigates the feelings presented by informal care-takers that attend less than 12 years old children with Type I Diabetes mellitus. A qualitative study, based on the principles of existential phenomenology, has been undertaken in a town in the northwestern region of the state of Paraná/Brazil, during June and July of 2007. The six interviewed people were asked the following question: “What does it mean for you to take care of a diabetic child?” Four categories were revealed: discovering the child’s diagnosis; living with the disease; experiencing the need to share suffering; the importance of spirituality to understand the situation. The experiencing of such situation is a difficult burden for those who take care of patients and the impact caused by the disease may bring about adaptation crises within the family. Results show the importance of being aware how the diabetic person and his/her relatives feel, facing and interpreting diabetes and its treatment.