Research Article Childhood Adversities are Associated with Diabetes Management in Working Age in Finland

Copyright © 2014 Lauri Pisto et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Backgrounds. Research findings suggest that themind can cause physical disease. To plan the best quality of care, general practitioner needs to understand an individual’s health problems in physical, social, and psychological dimensions.This study sought to establish whether adverse life events occurring in childhood and adolescence are associated with diabetes.Methods.The cohort was collected from the health and social support (HeSSup) study—a postal follow-up survey of randomized working-aged Finns initiated in 1998. The response rate was 40.0 % and the final cohort size 24057. Data on reimbursed diabetes medication during the years 1998– 2006 were obtained from the Social Insurance Institute of Finland registers. Subjects were divided into insulin, tablet, combination therapy, and drug-naive groups togetherwith a control groupwithout diabetes.Theprevalence of childhood adversities was assessed based on answers to six survey questions. Results. Childhood adversities showed predominant linkage to diabetes type 2 groups, especially to the combination therapy group requiring combined insulin and tablet treatment. No connection was found between childhood adversities and insulin use. Cumulative adversities did not markedly increase the association. Conclusions. Stressful events in childhood are associated with diabetes combination therapy in working age. The meaning of the relationship remains unsolved. 1