Table 1.
Participants’ demographic and clinical characteristics
| Total sample (N=1265) | T1D (n=1071) | T2D (n=194) | P value (T1D vs T2D) | |
| Demographic characteristics | ||||
| Age, years | 49.6±15.8 (18–88) | 47.1±15.2 (18–86) | 63.3±11.5 (26–88) | <0.001 |
| Gender, female | 67.4 (853) | 71.3 (764) | 45.9 (109) | <0.001 |
| Native language | <0.001 | |||
| English | 87.0 (1101) | 85.6 (917) | 94.8 (184) | |
| Other* | 13.0 (164) | 14.4 (154) | 5.2 (10) | |
| Country of residence | <0.001 | |||
| USA | 29.4 (372) | 30.6 (328) | 22.7 (44) | |
| UK | 35.7 (452) | 30.3 (325) | 65.5 (127) | |
| Australia | 9.2 (116) | 9.8 (105) | 5.7 (11) | |
| Other | 25.7 (325) | 29.2 (313) | 6.2 (12) | |
| Current employment status | <0.001 | |||
| Full-time or part-time work, including self-employed | 56.0 (708) | 61.3 (656) | 26.8 (52) | |
| Student (full-time or part-time) | 7.1 (90) | 7.9 (85) | 2.6 (5) | |
| Not working (retired, not retired, unable to work) | 34.6 (438) | 27.9 (299) | 71.6 (139) | |
| Other | 10.4 (131) | 10.6 (113) | 9.3 (18) | |
| Financial difficulties† in the past 12 months | 21.9 (261) | 20.3 (205) | 30.6 (56) | 0.003 |
| Highest level of education | <0.001 | |||
| Secondary or lower | 12.8 (153) | 11.5 (116) | 20.2 (37) | |
| University | 68.2 (814) | 72.6 (733) | 44.3 (81) | |
| Other | 18.9 (226) | 15.9 (161) | 35.5 (65) | |
| Clinical characteristics | ||||
| Age of diabetes onset, years | 24.2±16.8 (1–78) | 20.5±14.9 (1–78) | 44.6±11.1 (15–74) | <0.001 |
| Diabetes duration, years | 25.5±15.6 (0.5–75) | 26.7±16.2 (0.5–75) | 18.7±8.9 (1–51) | <0.001 |
| Current diabetes management regimen | ||||
| Multiple daily injections | 53.0 (670) | 45.3 (485) | 48.5 (94) | |
| 1–2 daily injections | 7.1 (90) | – | 46.4 (90) | |
| Insulin pump | 47.0 (595) | 54.7 (586) | 4.6 (9) | |
| Blood glucose-lowering medications (oral) | 12.6 (160) | 5.1 (55) | 54.1 (105) | <0.001 |
| Commercial artificial pancreas/closed-loop systems | 9.1 (115) | 10.6 (114) | <1 (1) | <0.001 |
| Open-source artificial pancreas/closed-loop systems | 4.5 (57) | 5.3 (57) | – | <0.001 |
| Non-insulin injections | 3.1 (39) | 1.4 (15) | 12.4 (24) | <0.001 |
| Other | 3.2 (40) | 3.1 (33) | 3.6 (7) | 0.657 |
| Current glucose monitoring method | <0.001 | |||
| Continuous glucose monitor | 43.1 (545) | 48.9 (524) | 10.8 (21) | |
| Finger prick blood glucose | 26.1 (330) | 18.1 (194) | 70.1 (136) | |
| Freestyle Libre | 16.4 (207) | 17.3 (185) | 11.3 (22) | |
| Freestyle Libre 2 | 14.2 (180) | 15.5 (166) | 7.2 (14) | |
| None | <1 (2) | <1 (1) | <1 (1) | |
| Urine glucose monitor | <1 (1) | <1 (1) | – | |
| HbA1c, % | 7±1.2 (4–16) | 6.9±1.1 (4–16) | 7.7±1.5 (5–13) | <0.001 |
| HbA1c, mmol/mol | 53.3±13.2 (21–155) | 52.3±12.4 (21–155) | 60.5±16.3 (33–116) | <0.001 |
| Awareness of hypoglycemia | ||||
| HypoA-Q impaired awareness subscale | 8.7±3.7 (1–18) | 8.9±3.8 (1–18) | 7.4±3.2 (1–14) | <0.001 |
| Gold score ≥4 | 32.1 (390) | 33.7 (347) | 23.1 (43) | 0.005 |
| Hypoglycemia frequency | ||||
| Any episode of any severity in the past week, median (range) | 3 (0–52) | 3 (0–52) | 1 (0–10) | <0.001 |
| ≥1 self-treated episode per week over the past year | 63.1 (773) | 71.4 (740) | 17.6 (33) | <0.001 |
| ≥1 severe episode in the past year | 21.5 (262) | 22.4 (231) | 16.7 (31) | 0.099 |
| Diabetes complications | ||||
| Retinopathy | 20.4 (258) | 19.8 (212) | 23.7 (46) | 0.210 |
| Neuropathy | 16.0 (202) | 12.8 (137) | 33.5 (65) | <0.001 |
| Sexual dysfunction | 13.7 (173) | 10.2 (109) | 33.0 (64) | <0.001 |
| Kidney damage/renal failure | 7.8 (99) | 6.3 (68) | 16.0 (31) | <0.001 |
| Heart disease/heart attack | 6.6 (83) | 4.3 (48) | 19.1 (37) | <0.001 |
| Vascular disease | 6.6 (83) | 4.2 (45) | 19.6 (38) | <0.001 |
| Stroke | 1.1 (14) | <1 (4) | 5.2 (10) | <0.001 |
| Psychological comorbidities | ||||
| Anxiety | 27.6 (349) | 27.6 (296) | 27.3 (53) | >0.999 |
| Depression | 21.7 (275) | 20.9 (224) | 26.3 (51) | 0.108 |
| Impact of COVID-19 on QoL‡ | 2.7±1.1(1–7) | 2.7±1.1 (1–7) | 2.6±1.3 (1–7) | 0.123 |
Data presented as M±SD (range) or valid % (n) unless otherwise listed.
Independent samples t-tests were conducted for continuous variable comparisons and χ2 tests for categorical variable comparisons.
Not all ‘n’s add up to 100% due to missing data. Some ‘n’s add up to >100% due to multiple selections allowed.
*Afrikaans, Arabic, Bengali, Cantonese, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Iranian, Irish, Italian, Kikuyu, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Marathi, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Scottish, Slovakian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Turkish and Welsh.
†Financial difficulties were defined as not being able to pay for things on time (eg, rent, mortgage, bills), not being able to buy important things (eg, food, clothing), or not being able to afford services (eg, healthcare).
‡Scored on a Likert scale from 1 (very negative impact) to 7 (very positive impact).
HbA1c, hemoglobin A1c; HypoA-Q, Hypoglycemia Awareness Questionnaire; QoL, quality of life; T1D, type 1 diabetes; T2D, type 2 diabetes.