EDITORIAL November 17, 2022 November 17, 2022

Psychology at the heart of every diabetes care intervention

DOI: 10.20945/2359-3997000000575

Speculations about the individual aspects and their interfaces with the etiology and management of diabetes mellitus have generated a great amount of uncertainty and research across time. Investigators who focused their attention on the behavior of people with diabetes were intrigued by the significant differences in terms of their personal position about diagnosis and treatment when compared to the pattern of subjects with other conditions.

In 1679, Thomas Willis hypothesized about the importance of “prolonged sorrow” in the etiology of diabetes. Menninger, almost 250 years later, considered that depression and anxiety were characteristics of the “diabetic personality” pattern (). In 1981, Dunn and Turtle broke down “the myth of a diabetic personality” by pointing out sampling bias on research which invalidated the generalization of specific findings from studies with this population. However, they concluded that “the clinical heterogeneity of diabetes is matched by the psychological heterogeneity of its sufferers” ().

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