Behavioral changes in diabetic children and adolescents: an integrative review

Abstract

Objective: To analyze whether there is strong scientific evidence on the relationship between diabetes mellitus and the behavior of children and adolescents. Method: Integrative literature review considering the virtual portals PubMed and BVS - Virtual Health Library. In this review were adopted the descriptors or MeSH Terms "Diabetes Mellitus", "Complications of Diabetes Mellitus", "Child Behavior" and "Adolescent Behavior", with the Boolean operators AND an NOT, respecting the PRISMA methodology: Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses. The guiding question was directly related to the general objective of this review. We included scientific articles, published without time limit, in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. The exclusion criteria were: opinions, letters to the reader, essays, monographs, dissertations or theses, and studies without abstracts, focused exclusively on eating behavior, involving other dysfunctions that may affect the nervous system or behavior, or that were not related to the guiding question. The selection of the records was made independently by two researchers. From the reading of the title and abstract there was the selection of the papers for reading in full. Results: From 5,355 records, five articles were included and synthesized. Conclusion: Sleep difficulties, difficulties in the performance of executive functions, cognitive or daily routine were related to behavioral problems of this target population, as well as greater symptoms of depression, anxiety, and emotional instability, with the need for specialized monitoring.