Endocrine Abstracts

Background: In March 2020, at the beginning of the first COVID-19 lockdown, Zagreb (Croatia) was hit by a strong earthquake aftermore than 100 years.Restrictive epidemiological measures affected people’s lifestyles, and the earthquakewas an additional traumatic event.

Objectives: Determine whether the earthquakes and the lockdown affected glycaemic control in type 1 diabetes patients using flash glucose monitoring (FGM).

Methods: This study enrolled 28 type 1 diabetes patients and 21 of them experienced the earthquake.Aquestionnaire about diabetesmanagement at this timewas conducted. FGM(FreeStyle Libre) data were collected in the three two-week periods: (1) before the lockdown and the earthquake, (2) after the earthquake, at a beginning of the lockdown, (3) eight weeks after the earthquake, at the end of the lockdown. We analyzed the average glucose level, glucose management indicator, active FGM time, time in range, time belowrange, timeabove range and coefficient of variation in the whole cohort of patients and separately in those that experienced the earthquake.

Results: Among patients that experienced the earthquake, 53% answered that nothing changed in their diabetesmanagement in the days after the event, 23%estimated that with more efforts they kept the control and 12% reported difficulties in diabetes management. 24%of those patients increased their insulin doses. In the same sample of patients, the time above range decreased after the earthquake in comparison to the previous period (PZ0.03) while lower active FGMtime was of borderline significance (PZ0.07). In the rest of our analysis no changes in FGM metrics between periods were found.

Conclusion: In this small pilot study we did not find that Zagreb earthquake affected disease management of type 1 diabetes patients stronger than the everyday life challenges they are faced with, but each patient should be approached individually.