Quality of life and physical activity in type 1 diabetes.
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Authors
Cockcroft, Emma J
Chithuranjan, Dillon
Narendran, Parth
Andrews, Robert C
Dias, Renuka P
Issue Date
2025-05-01
Type
Journal Article
Systematic Review
Systematic Review
Language
en
Keywords
Physical activity , Quality of life , Type 1 diabetes
Alternative Title
Abstract
Introduction
T1 Diabetes (T1D) is one of the most common chronic diseases in children and young people [1] with almost 34 000 aged 18 years or less living with T1D [2]. Physical activity is promoted as one of a number of management tools for people living with diabetes, being associated with significant health benefits including improved glycaemic control. The benefits of physical activity on quality of life in children with T1D is unclear with confounding effects of disease duration and co-morbidities in studies.
Aim
To determine the effect of physical activity interventions on quality of life of children with type 1 diabetes.
Methods
A systematic review was conducted and reported in line with PRISMA 2009 guidance. The CINAHL, Embase, International Pharmaceutical Abstracts, Medline, PubMed and PsychINFO databases were searched for the period January 1994 to March 2025. Papers were included in the present review if they included a study intervention in children under 19 years of age that was more than a single exercise session and had a control group (with or without T1D) as a comparator group. The primary outcome measure was Quality of Life (QoL) indicators.
Results
We assessed 3020 records, of which three randomised controlled trials (RCT) published between 2007 and 2020 met study inclusion criteria. There was significant heterogeneity in study design, methods and reporting. Benefits of physical activity were not consistently seen across studies.
Conclusion
There remains limited data on QoL outcomes or even a standardisation for measuring QoL in this cohort as seen by the various validated tools used across studies. There continues to be a need for further work to understand the additional framework (psychological underpinning) to cause longer term impactful changes on both physical and psychological health in children with T1D.
Description
© The Author(s) 2025. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Citation
J Cockcroft E, Chithuranjan D, Narendran P, C Andrews R, P Dias R. Quality of life and physical activity in type 1 diabetes. BMC Pediatr. 2025 May 1;25(1):345. doi: 10.1186/s12887-025-05632-6. PMID: 40312313; PMCID: PMC12044773.
Publisher
Springer Nature
License
© 2025. The Author(s).
Journal
BMC pediatrics
Volume
25
Issue
1
PubMed ID
ISSN
1471-2431