Key words
pediatric diabetes care - comorbidities - type 1 diabetes - type 2 diabetes - descriptive
study
Introduction
Education is widely recognized as an essential part of diabetes management for
children and adolescents with diabetes mellitus. In high-income countries, long-term
pediatric diabetes care includes structured education programs, according to the
International Society for Pediatric and Adolescent Diabetes guidelines [1]. In addition to general information on
diabetes care, individual treatment goals are defined and disease management skills
are trained. Objectives are not only self-management, but also psychosocial
integration and the improvement of health-related quality of life [2].
In Germany, inpatient rehabilitation can be proposed when education offered in the
framework of acute hospital and outpatient care is not sufficient or when age
appropriate education programs are not available [3]
[4]. Indications are both medical and
psychosocial [3]
[5]. At the primarily medical level,
target groups are pediatric patients with insufficient metabolic control, recurrent
severe hypoglycemia or ketoacidosis, comorbidities or organ complications. At the
psychosocial level, the objective is to help children with school and/or
family problems to cope better with the disease, and thereby to enhance
participation in social activities. There is some evidence that spending a long time
(generally four, sometimes six weeks) with other affected children of the same age
and sharing experiences can improve self-management attitudes [6]. Furthermore, inpatient rehabilitation
can be proposed for age appropriate initial education following diabetes onset, or
for training of insulin pump therapy, when such education is not available in the
hometown [4]
[7].
Until recently, inpatient rehabilitation for pediatric patients with diabetes only
existed in Germany. In Austria, the first specific inpatient rehabilitation center
for children with chronic diseases, including metabolic disorders, started in
2016-2017 [8]
[9]. Contrary to inpatient rehabilitation,
summer camps for children with diabetes are widespread all over the world to
socialize with peers and develop autonomy [6]. Most of the summer camps also include structured training with a
multidisciplinary team in addition to recreational activities. However,
participation to summer camps does not require an additional medical indication
besides diabetes. In contrast, inpatient rehabilitation often targets children and
adolescents with specific diabetes-related problems which cannot be treated on an
outpatient basis, and require longer multidisciplinary care not available in the
acute hospital setting [10].
Inpatient rehabilitation for pediatric patients with diabetes is well established
in
Germany [10]. Positive effects in
self-care management, metabolic control and participation were demonstrated for the
year after the rehabilitation [3].
Nevertheless, mainly single center studies are available [11]. An integrative view of inpatient
rehabilitation for children and adolescents with diabetes in Germany is therefore
lacking. Our objective was to analyze inpatient rehabilitation of children with
diabetes between 2006 and 2013 in Germany in order to get a better understanding of
its contribution to pediatric diabetes care.
Material and Methods
Study population
We requested secondary data from the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme
and considered all admissions to inpatient rehabilitation for children and
adolescents with any type of diabetes reimbursed by this institution during the
years 2006-2013 (“Abgeschlossene Rehabilitation im Versicherungsverlauf
2006–2013. Quelle: Forschungsdatenzentrum der Rentenversicherung,
FDZ-RV”). Inpatient rehabilitation for children and adolescents, as a
category defined by the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme
(“Kinderrehabilitation”), includes not only all inpatient
rehabilitations of patients until the age of 18, but also those until the age of
27 in case of vocational training, voluntary work in the social or environmental
sector, federal volunteer service or disability with inability to care for
oneself. We selected cases if one of the five possible diagnoses in the
discharge report was type 1 diabetes (T1D, coded as E10), type 2 diabetes (T2D,
coded as E11) or other types of diabetes mellitus (coded as E12-14), according
to ICD-10.
Statistical analysis
For each type of diabetes, we analyzed the distribution of admissions to
inpatient rehabilitation by admission year, age group, sex, nationality, federal
state of residence, duration of rehabilitation stay, diagnosis for
rehabilitation approval, as well as the prevalence of other diagnoses documented
in the discharge report in addition to diabetes.
Age was calculated as the difference between the year of the beginning of
rehabilitation stay and the year of birth and was categorized into five groups
(0-5,>5–10,>10–15,>15–20,>20–27
years). Duration of rehabilitation stay was given in days, whereupon admission
and discharge days were considered as a half day each. Approval diagnosis was
categorized by the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme into ten major
groups: musculoskeletal disorders, circulatory system diseases, endocrine and
metabolic disorders, respiratory disease (including asthma), neoplasms,
genitourinary disorders, mental disorders, nervous system disorders, skin
disorders, and other disorders. For each rehabilitation stay, up to five
diagnoses coded according to the ICD-10 and partly pooled by the German
Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme were mentioned in the discharge report. We
grouped the most frequent diagnoses besides diabetes into the following
categories: obesity (ICD-E65-68), mental disorders (ICD-F06-07, F10-48, F51-69,
F90-99) including eating disorders (ICD-E50), respiratory infections
(ICD-J00-42, J80-99), disorders of the thyroid gland (ICD-E00-07), asthma
(ICD-J45-47), back pain (ICD-M40-41, M54), coeliac disease (ICD-K90-93),
hypertension (ICD-I10-15), metabolic disorders, including lactose intolerance or
cystic fibrosis (ICD-E70-90), infectious and parasitic diseases (ICD-A00-99,
B00-09, B15-99), disease of the blood (D50-85, D87-89), and neoplasms
(ICD-C00-26, C30-41, C4354, C56-58, C60-97, D00-48, D86).
The number of children with T1D in each federal state was calculated by
multiplying the number of inhabitants under 15 years by federal state in 2011
(German Federal Statistical Office [12]) by the assumed uniformly distributed national prevalence of 162
per 100,000 children for T1D [13]. The
prevalence of inpatient rehabilitation in each federal state was then estimated
by dividing the mean number of admissions of patients per year by the number of
children with T1D in each federal state.
We assessed whether the number of admissions for each type of diabetes depended
on sex, on admission year or on age group using Pearson Chi2-test,
and whether the prevalence of mental disorders and obesity depended on age group
using Pearson Chi2-test for T1D and Fisher’s exact test for
T2D. The level of significance of two-sided tests was set at p<0.05. All
statistical analyses were conducted via remote computing with IBM SPSS Version
24.
Results
Between 2006 and 2013, 5,403 admissions to inpatient rehabilitation for 4,746
children or adolescents with diabetes were documented. Of all patients,
11.8% were admitted two or more times to rehabilitation in the analyzed time
period.
T1D was indicated in 88.5% of the discharge reports (n=4,785), T2D in
8.4% (n=456), and other types of diabetes in 3.1%
(n=167) (clear assignment was not possible in five cases because of double
documentation). Median duration of rehabilitation stay was higher for T2D (42 days)
than for all other types of diabetes (28 days).
As indicated in [Fig. 1], the number of
admissions to inpatient rehabilitation increased between 2006 and 2013 for all types
of diabetes, particularly for patients with T1D (from 458 in 2006 to 688 in 2013,
p=0.013), and for patients with other types of diabetes (p=0.019).
For patients with T2D, the number of admissions did not increase significantly
(p=0.09). Relative frequencies of admissions for each type of diabetes
remained stable in the considered time period.
Fig. 1 Admissions to pediatric inpatient rehabilitation by diabetes
type between 2006 and 2013. Data source: German Statutory Pension Insurance
Scheme (FDZ-RV - RSDLV13ZIBMT).
Demographic analysis
For each type of diabetes, the number of admissions depended on age group
(p<0.001). In patients with T1D, most of the admissions
(42.7%) concerned patients aged>10-15 ([Fig. 2b]). The relative frequency of
admissions for children aged>5–10 increased from 25.8%
in 2006 to 35.8% in 2013, whereas admissions of children
aged>15–20 decreased from 21.0% to 16.0% in the
same period ([Fig. 2b]). For patients
with T2D or other types of diabetes, the largest part of the admissions
(92.3% and 80.2%, respectively) were for
age-groups>10-15 and>15-20 ([Fig. 2c and d]).
Fig. 2 Admissions to pediatric inpatient rehabilitation by
diabetes type and age group between 2006 and 2013. Data source: German
Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme (FDZ-RV - RSDLV13ZIBMT).
Female preponderance was present in admissions for all types of diabetes
(52.1% in T1D, 64.5% in T2D, and 66.5% in other types of
diabetes, all p≤0.001) and remained stable over time. Almost all
admissions concerned patients with German nationality (98.5%), even if
this proportion decreased slightly from 99.4% in 2008 to 97.3%
in 2013.
As displayed on [Fig. 3], the
estimated prevalence of inpatient rehabilitation among patients with T1D under
15 years of age living in the “new” federal states (former
Eastern Germany, GDR, without Berlin) was higher in the considered time period
than among those living in the “old” federal states (former
Western Germany, FRG).
Fig. 3 Prevalence of pediatric inpatient rehabilitation by
federal states (estimations for 2006–2013 in patients with type
1 diabetes younger than 15 years).
Other diagnoses besides diabetes
The most frequent diagnosis mentioned in the approval for inpatient
rehabilitation for pediatric patients with diabetes was “endocrine and
metabolic disorders” (96.3% for patients with T1D, 84.4%
for patients with T2D or other types of diabetes). Approvals were also given for
the diagnosis of mental disorders (1.7% for T1D, 9.0% for T2D
and 4.8% for other types of diabetes) or for respiratory diseases
(0.7% for T1D, 2.9% for T2D, and 4.8% for other types of
diabetes).
Besides diabetes, 0.6 diagnoses were documented on average in the discharge
report for T1D patients, compared with 1.9 for T2D patients. Overall, more
diagnoses were documented for patients admitted more than one time in
rehabilitation (0.8 diagnoses for T1D and 2.2 for T2D patients). [Table 1] lists the most frequent
diagnoses documented in addition to diabetes during inpatient rehabilitation.
Mental disorders, obesity or respiratory infections were documented in about
one-tenth of the discharge reports for patients with T1D. Obesity was the most
frequent documented diagnosis for patients with T2D (present in almost
90% of the discharge reports), followed by mental disorders and
hypertension. Results indicated no clear time trend for the prevalence of
documented obesity or mental disorders between 2006 and 2013.
Table 1 Most frequent documented diagnoses besides diabetes,
stratified by diabetes type.
|
Other diagnoses documented
|
Type 1 diabetes (n=4,785 admissions*)
|
Type 2 diabetes (n=456 admissions*)
|
Other types of diabetes**
(n=167 admissions*)
(** ICD: E12-E14)
|
|
Mental disorders (of which eating disorders)
|
556 (32)
|
11.6% (0.7%)
|
125 (16)
|
27.4% (3.5%)
|
23 (3)
|
13.8% (1.8%)
|
|
Obesity
|
529
|
11.1%
|
401
|
87.9%
|
83
|
49.7%
|
|
Respiratory infections
|
516
|
10.8%
|
40
|
8.8%
|
17
|
10.2%
|
|
Disorders of the thyroid gland
|
298
|
6.2%
|
48
|
10.5%
|
17
|
10.2%
|
|
Asthma
|
244
|
5.1%
|
46
|
10.1%
|
16
|
9.6%
|
|
Back pain
|
197
|
4.1%
|
35
|
7.7%
|
7
|
4.2%
|
|
Coeliac disease
|
183
|
3.8%
|
1
|
0.2%
|
2
|
1.2%
|
|
Hypertension
|
127
|
2.7%
|
105
|
23.0%
|
23
|
13.8%
|
|
Metabolic disorders (e. g. lactose intolerance,
cystic fibrosis)
|
110
|
2.3%
|
63
|
13.8%
|
61
|
36.5%
|
|
Infectious and parasitic diseases
|
84
|
1.8%
|
9
|
2.0%
|
24
|
14.4%
|
|
Disease of the blood
|
22
|
0.5%
|
2
|
0.4%
|
3
|
1.8%
|
|
Neoplasms
|
11
|
0.2%
|
9
|
2.0%
|
3
|
1.8%
|
Absolute and relative frequencies of diagnoses documented in addition to
diabetes in discharge reports for pediatric inpatient rehabilitation
between 2006 and 2013 (each discharge report contains up to five
diagnoses); Data source: German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme
(FDZ-RV – RSDLV13ZIBMT); * Overall
n=5,408 admissions, of which five documenting two different
types of diabetes.
For both T1D and T2D, the prevalence of mental disorders documented in discharge
reports increased with age. The increase was more pronounced in patients with
T2D (from 9.1% for patients aged>5–10 years to
65.2% for patients older than 20 years, p=0.028), compared to
patients with T1D (from 7.9% to 23.7%, p<0.001)
([Fig. 4]). Documentation of
obesity in discharge reports increased significantly with age in patients with
T1D only (from 3.2 to 20.3%, from the youngest to the oldest age group,
p<0.001). Increase of documented obesity with age was not
significant in patients with T2D (p=0.09) ([Fig. 4]).
Fig. 4 Prevalence of obesity and mental disorders by age group in
discharge reports of inpatient rehabilitation for children and
adolescents with diabetes between 2006 and 2013. Data source: German
Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme (FDZ-RV - RSDLV13ZIBMT).
Most frequent diagnoses documented in discharge reports for patients older than
18 years (n=240 admissions) are listed in Table 1S (Supporting
Information, online).
Discussion and Conclusions
Discussion and Conclusions
This analysis aimed to give an integrative view of inpatient rehabilitation for
children and adolescents with diabetes in Germany between 2006 and 2013. We found
that T1D was specified in 88.5%, T2D in 8.4%, and other types of
diabetes in 3.1% of the discharge reports. The number of admissions
increased significantly in this time period for T1D (especially for age
group>5-10) and other types of diabetes, but not for T2D. Overall,
admissions were more frequent for girls, for German nationality, and for residents
of the former Eastern Germany. For both T1D and T2D, the most frequent documented
diagnoses besides diabetes were obesity and mental disorders. The prevalence of both
diseases increased with age, except for obesity in patients with T2D, which remained
quite stable at a high level.
T1D was the most frequent type of diabetes documented in discharge reports. Inpatient
rehabilitation is a well-established additive option in the therapeutic concept for
children and adolescents with T1D in Germany. Inpatient rehabilitation is not only
indicated in case of insufficient metabolic control, recurrent severe hypoglycemia
or ketoacidosis, comorbidities or organ complications, but also to enable the
composition of age-appropriate education groups [3]
[4]
[7].
Discharge reports indicated a higher number of comorbidities for children and
adolescents with T2D compared to patients with T1D. In addition to obesity, present
in almost 90% of the discharge reports for T2D, mental disorders,
hypertension, metabolic disorders, disorders of the thyroid gland, and/or
asthma were the most frequent diagnoses mentioned. International studies confirmed
that childhood obesity is associated with higher risk of psychological and physical
comorbidities, in particular asthma, metabolic risk factors, internalizing
disorders, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and decreased health-related
quality of life [14]. Furthermore, the
higher prevalence of comorbidities in T2D might be one explanation for the longer
mean duration of rehabilitation stay found for these patients compared with patients
with other types of diabetes.
Our findings indicate that admissions to inpatient rehabilitation for children and
adolescents with T1D and other types of diabetes significantly increased between
2006 and 2013, whereas increase of admissions for children with T2D was not
significant. These results are in line with the increasing incidence of T1D and the
stable incidence of T2D observed since 2005 in the German pediatric population [15]
[16]. The magnitude of the increase in the
admissions for T1D (about 50% between 2006 and 2013) corresponds to the
increase of the incidence rate of childhood T1D reported by Patterson and colleagues
(approximately 3 – 4% per annum across Europe for the time period
1989–2008) [17]. On the other
hand, the increase of the admissions to inpatient rehabilitation for children and
adolescents with T1D contrasts with the general decline of the admissions to
inpatient rehabilitation for children and adolescents in Germany in this time period
(-15% between 2006 and 2013) [18].
Between 2006 and 2013, the proportion of admissions for patients with T1D
aged>5-10 increased whereas the proportion aged>15-20 decreased in
the same period. In conformity with these results, our group reported recently that
the chance of hospital admissions for pediatric patients with T1D compared to that
without T1D in Germany was the highest for the age group>5–10 [19]. One explanation is that the increase
of T1D incidence in Europe is highest in the youngest children [16]. Therefore we assume that inpatient
rehabilitation following complications have become less frequent compared to
indications related to diabetes onset, like e. g. initial education or
training for insulin pump. Moreover, due to changes in society, rehabilitation seems
to have become less attractive for adolescents than for children of other age
categories [20].
Preponderance of girls in inpatient rehabilitation conforms to a monocentric analysis
considering inpatient rehabilitation for pediatric diabetes between 2004 and 2016
[11]. Girls with T1D have also a
higher chance of hospital admission compared to boys, probably in consequence of
more frequent acute diabetes-related complications [19]. Furthermore, we can speculate if the
willingness to spend many weeks outside of the family is higher in girls than in
boys.
Almost all admissions to inpatient rehabilitation were for patients with German
nationality, even if the proportion of foreign patients tended to increase very
slowly. The definition of German nationality includes persons with migration
background, when they have at least one German parent, or when they are born in
Germany from 2000 on, with one parent living in Germany since eight years or longer.
Official German statistics indicate a lower proportion of children with German
nationality (90%-93%, depending on the age range) compared to that
in children with diabetes participating in rehabilitation [21]. Several facts could explain why
foreign patients with diabetes were underrepresented in inpatient rehabilitation.
First, application for rehabilitation might constitute an obstacle for some foreign
families (fear of administrative procedures and language comprehension difficulties)
[20]. Furthermore, there may exist
cultural barriers against long stays of children outside of the family [20]. Finally, the prevalence of T1D tends
to be smaller in some non-European populations [22]
[23].
We found that children with T1D living in the “new” federal states
utilized more inpatient rehabilitations compared to those living in the Western part
of the country. This is possibly due to historical differences in health systems and
different traditions of inpatient rehabilitation that are lasting after German
reunification. Until 1989, diabetes structures with a multidisciplinary team were
scarce in the Eastern part of the country, especially in Saxony-Anhalt and
Thuringia, where mainly small hospitals were present. A centralized institution, the
Central institute for diabetes in Karlsburg (Mecklenburg-West Pomerania) therefore
organized diabetes education for children and adults with diabetes for the Eastern
part of Germany, in the form of holiday camps or inpatient rehabilitation [24]. Hence, inpatient rehabilitation was
common in this part of the country.
The two most frequent diagnoses documented besides diabetes in discharge reports were
obesity and mental disorders. This is in line with the most frequent diagnoses
mentioned in approval decision for inpatient rehabilitation for all pediatric
patients (with or without diabetes) in Germany: mental disorders (24.0%),
followed by obesity (19.3%), and asthma (17.2%) [25]. Inpatient rehabilitation for pediatric
diabetes is primarily proposed to patients with additional problems besides
diabetes, in particular family or school problems, or insufficient metabolic
control. Thus we expected a higher prevalence of mental disorders and of obesity in
children and adolescents with diabetes who took part in rehabilitation compared to
peers with diabetes who did not. Data from the DPV registry from 2014 indicate a
prevalence of 7.5% of mental disorders in T1D patients younger than 18 years
of age [26]. As expected, this is less
than in our results. Similarly, prevalence of obesity in discharge reports for T1D
is higher compared to peers with T1D outside of rehabilitation (5% in the
age group 2-<18 years, based on KiGGS reference data, German Health
Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents) [27].
In our findings, the prevalence of mental disorders documented in discharge reports
increased with age for both T1D and T2D, and the prevalence of obesity became more
frequent with age in patients with T1D. In pediatric patients without diabetes in
Germany, the prevalence of obesity increased with age [28] but not the risk of mental disorders
[29].
Multicenter studies on inpatient rehabilitation in children and adolescents with
diabetes in Germany are very scarce. To our best knowledge, only one national
multicenter study exists, analyzing the effect of inpatient rehabilitation in a
selection of 1,282 pediatric patients with T1D between 1996 and 2010 [3]. However, we are not able to ascertain
the representativeness of the selected population. Moreover, comparisons with our
findings are difficult, because in this study, nationality was not reported and age
groups differed. Furthermore, data on other types of diabetes or comorbidities were
not available.
We used data from the German Statutory Pension Insurance Scheme that funds almost
all
inpatient rehabilitation for children and adolescents in Germany, so that we assume
a high representativeness [30]. However,
we could not evaluate data completeness and quality. In particular comorbidities may
have been underreported. In addition, diagnoses for rehabilitation approval as well
as diagnoses in discharge reports were partly pooled by the German Statutory Pension
Insurance Scheme, so that comparisons are difficult. A further limitation is that
data about metabolic parameters are not collected by the German Statutory Pension
Insurance Scheme; hence, no information on metabolic control could be given.
Nevertheless, this seems to be the first study which describes demographics and
comorbidities of almost all inpatient rehabilitation of children with diabetes in
Germany, and their time trends over many years.
Note added in proof: After submission of this work, Schiel et al. published an
analysis of pediatric patients with diabetes admitted to rehabilitation in Germany
based on the DPV registry, which also includes admissions financed by the German
Statutory Health Insurance [31].
Author Contributions
M.A and R.W.H. designed the study. M.A. analyzed the study data, wrote the manuscript
and created figures. B.B., R.S., R.S., S.K., T.H, and R.W.H. contributed to the
discussion and reviewed/edited the manuscript.