Impact of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Outbreak on Children and Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus

Background: this study aimed to investigate the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 (covid-19) pandemic on daily routines and health of patients with type 1 diabetes mellitus (t1dm).study design: a cross-sectional study.methods: this study included 98 children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes who were regularlyfollowed up in the endocrinology outpatient clinic of besat hospital, hamadan, iran, in 2020. theprimary measurements included body mass index, glycemic control, number of hypoglycemicevents, number of hospitalizations, as well as bedtime and availability of insulin six months pre andpost covid-19 outbreak. the obtained data were analyzed in spss software (version 16). a pvalueless than 0.05 was considered statistically significant.results: out of 98 participants (mean ±sd age: 13.5±49), 51% of the cases were male, and %81.6of the patients were urban residents. furthermore, most participants (43.9%) were in the age group of 11-15 years, and the mean ±sd duration of diabetes was 4.64±3.31 years. in addition, 2.04% of the participants developed covid-19. there was a statistically significant difference among average duration of night sleep (p<0.001), bedtime (p<0.001), time of waking up (p<0.001),amount of insulin intake (p=0.003), daily exercise (p<0.001), and availability of the insulin(p<0.001) before and during covid-19 crisis. the frequencies of hospitalizations andhypoglycemic events were lower after the covid-19 outbreak (p=0.005 and p=0.034,respectively). morning insulin dose was omitted in 22.2% of participants. no differences were foundbetween hemoglobin a1c and daytime sleep pre and post covid-19 outbreak.conclusions: the key challenges due to covid-19 pandemic restrictions for iranian t1dmpatients were the need to take more insulin, lower physical activity, non-availability of insulin, andmissed morning insulin dose. however, it is worth mentioning that the patients' blood glucosecontrol did not worsen in this period.