Original ArticlePrevalance and Associations of Food Insecurity in Children with Diabetes Mellitus
Section snippets
Methods
Between April 2008 and August 2009, families meeting the study’s inclusion criteria were recruited through two general pediatric practices in Sydney, Nova Scotia (n = 50) and the IWK Diabetes Clinic in Halifax, Nova Scotia (n = 275), which provides tertiary care to the children from the Maritime Provinces and secondary care to the local population of children with DM. Participation in this cross-sectional survey was offered consecutively to all patients who met the inclusion criteria as they
Results
Of the 200 families recruited, 183 were included in the analysis. Four families refused to participate, 3 families had a child who did not meet an inclusion criterion (ie, diagnosis in the previous 6 months), 9 families could not be contacted, and in one family, their child died before contact was established. The mean age of the children with DM was 11.8 ± 3.99 years, and the mean age at diagnosis of DM was 7.1 ± 4.07 years, with no significant difference seen between the food-secure and
Discussion
Our findings show that 1 in every 4-5 families in Nova Scotia with a child with DM struggles to maintain access to sufficient food. This rate of food insecurity is significantly higher than the overall rates of 1 in 6 Nova Scotian families and 1 in 10 Canadian families. An obvious potential contributor to the high rate of food insecurity in our study sample is the additional costs involved in treating DM (an average of $88.55/month; Table) for families with an already-strained budget. This
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Supported by a Category A grant from IWK Research Services. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.