Abstract
Although there has been some study of the extralaboratory generality of stress effects on diabetic metabolism, analysis of the diabetic response to everyday life stress is needed. The secondary objective of this study was to investigate whether personal characteristics moderate the daily stress-glucose relationship. Twenty-five women with Type I diabetes completed measures of internality and self-esteem and subsequently monitored daily stress and blood glucose for 30 consecutive days. Data were analyzed by both time-series and conventional correlational analyses. Glucose was higher on high-stress days than on low-stress days, with one-third of the sample showing significant positive associations between stress and same-day glucose. However, stress showed little relation to next-day glucose. Personal characteristics failed to explain differences in stress-glucose associations. Implications for practice and future research are presented.
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This work was funded by a grant and fellowship from the Medical Psychology Program at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and NIH/NICH Grants HD24322, HD25310, and HD00867. LifeScan Incorporated (a Johnson & Johnson Company, Mountainview, CA) and Missy Atkins, Professional Representative, donated the necessary instruments and related supplies.
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Aikens, J.E., Wallander, J.L., Bell, D.S.H. et al. A nomothetic-idiographic study of daily psychological stress and blood glucose in women with Type I diabetes mellitus. J Behav Med 17, 535–548 (1994). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01857596
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01857596