Sex/Gender Psychological Differences in the Adult Diabetic Patient and How a Child’s Response to Chronic Disease Varies with Age and Can Be Influenced by Technology

Abstract

Chronic diseases have a negative impact on quality of life and perceived well-being. Depression tends to be more frequent in people with chronic diseases than the general population, and, for example, in diabetes, it has an incidence of two to three times higher and often remains under-diagnosed. The inability to control and predict the course of the disease exposes chronic patients to mood fluctuations which are often difficult to manage, also in virtue of the fact that in any chronic pathology a stabilization aimed at attenuating the symptoms or slowing the course is pursued, but it cannot tend to achieve complete healing. This fact of incurability for many subjects means the loss of control over their own body, in which the social and family role is also perceived as compromised and the experienced distress can result in the appearance of underlying disorders, both psychological or psychiatric. In this area, there is currently a great deal of focus on sex/gender differences. The aim of this article is to highlight these differences with regard to the emotional aspects that most affect the management of diabetic pathology. In this paper, we will underline a particularly underestimated eating disorder: diabulimia, then that the perception of itself is not only related to the sex assigned at birth, but also to the gender that is acquired during life, and we will also analyze the three phases related to the acquisition of gender identity during the evolutionary period. Finally, we will talk about the use of technology in diabetic patients (insulin pumps, continuous glucose monitoring variably integrated into each other) that might generate a series of psychological–behavioral reactions related to the integration between technology and body image and the experience of social acceptance of the individual, particularly in the evolution age.