Abstract Body

It is well-documented that women with type 1 and type 2 diabetes report significantly higher levels of emotional distress than men with diabetes. Research has documented this for diabetes-related distress, depression, anxiety, and fear of hypoglycemia and shown that these differences occur over a broad age span, with adolescent girls reporting more distress than boys, especially problems with body image and disordered eating patterns. Increased emotional distress is also higher in mothers of children with type 1 diabetes as compared to fathers. Importantly, these gender differences appear to occur pan globally with studies emerging across continents and cultures. This presentation will review some of the psychological issues and challenges that are unique to women with diabetes. In addition, this presentation will examine some of the implications of these gender differences for the adoption and use of diabetes technology in women. To explore the impact of gender, psychological and behavioral data from recent pivotal trials of hybrid closed loop control (CLC) use will be presented, focusing primarily on Diabetes Distress Surveys completed by study participants at baseline and after 24 weeks of CLC use. These data show that more female participants, both adults and adolescents, reported clinically significant levels of diabetes distress at baseline (adult women vs. men = 38% vs 24%, adolescent girls vs. boys = 47% vs. 13%). After use of CLC, higher scores tended to remain high for the majority of participants, indicating that diabetes technology may not be effective in lowering diabetes distress.