Objectives: The experience of having a child diagnosed with IDDMcan negatively impact on the parents well-being and triggerposttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in parents. Firstly, the mostfrequently identified diabetes-related traumatic stressors will bepresented. Secondly, results of a cross-sectional study investigatingthe relationship between both non-cognitive factors (trauma severity,psychiatric history, social support) and cognitive factors (negativecognitive appraisals, dysfunctional strategies) and PTSD symptomsin mothers of children who had been diagnosed with IDDM will beshown. Thirdly, results examining the relationship between mothers PTSD symptoms in relation to their childs diagnosis of IDDM andtheir adherence to the diabetes treatment regimen will be discussed.Methods: Data from structured clinical interviews and self-reportquestionnaires from a cross-sectional study of 60 mothers of childrendiagnosed with IDDM in the last 5 years will be presented.Results: The diabetes-related traumatic stressor that most mothersidentified was the moment when they first heard about their childsdiagnosis. All cognitive variables were positively associated withPTSD symptoms. In contrast, of the non-cognitive variables, onlysocial support was negatively associated with PTSD symptoms.Moreover, cognitive variables explained variance in PTSD symptomsover and above that contributed by the non-cognitive variables.Children of mothers with PTSD showed significantly pooreradherence to treatment than the children of mothers without PTSD.However, this was only the case for younger children where mothersplayed a more active role in their childs treatment.Conclusions: Identifying and offering early support to mothers whodevelop PTSD symptoms in relation to their childs IDDM may beone way of improving their adherence to their childs treatmentregimen, particularly for younger children.