<b>Objectives </b>To investigate
school absenteeism before the clinical diagnosis in children who developed type
1 diabetes.
<p> </p>
<p><b>Research Design and
Methods </b>Population based retrospective case control study involving all Danish
public-school children that developed type 1 diabetes (n= 1 338) from 2010-2017 matched 1:5 on sex and date of birth to children without
diabetes (n= 6 690). Monthly absenteeism was compared 12 months before to 12 months after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes. </p>
<p><b> </b></p>
<p><b>Results</b> Seven to 12 months before the diabetes diagnosis the mean
(SD) number of days
absent from school per month was 0.93 (1.78) among children with diabetes and
0.93 (1.82) among controls (difference:
-0.004 days, <i>p=</i>0.94). From 4 months before diagnosis, children who
developed diabetes had a statistically significant increase in absenteeism
compared with controls (difference: 0.24 days, <i>p</i><0.05). </p>
<p> </p>
<p><b>CONCLUSION </b>Children
who were diagnosed with type 1 diabetes had increased school absenteeism 4
months prior to diagnosis. </p>