Developing and psychometric testing of a short-form problem areas in diabetes scale in chinese patients

The 20-item Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) scale is widely used to measure diabetes-related emotional distress. The short-form PAID scale is helpful for the rapid screening of diabetes-related emotional distress in clinical settings.

This study developed and examined the psychometric properties of a short-form Chinese-version PAID (SF-PAID-C) scale.

The Chinese-version 20-item PAID (PAID-C) scale was administered to 855 patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Item analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and confirmatoryfactoranalysis were then applied to develop the SF-PAID-C and evaluate its construct validity. The correlations between SF-PAID-C and the latest HbA1c close to the measurement of PAID-C (baseline HbA1c) 3 months and 12 months later were used to examine the concurrent and predictive validity of the SF-PAID-C. Receiver operating characteristic curve analysis was used to examine the sensitivity and specificity of the SF-PAID-C. Cronbach's alpha was used to assess internal consistency. Test-retest on 24 patients was used to examine the stability of the SF-PAID-C.

An 8-item SF-PAID-C was developed. The SF-PAID-C significantly correlated with the PAID-C (r = .941, p < .001), baseline HbA1c (r = .148, p < .001), 3-month HbA1c (r = .147, p < .001), and 12-month HbA1c (r = .142, p < .001). The sensitivity and specificity of the SF-PAID-C were 93.2% and 94.2%, respectively. The Cronbach's α and test-retest reliability of the SF-PAID-C were .85 and .93, respectively.

The SF-PAID-C is a reliable and valid scale that can be used to screen for diabetes-related emotional problem in Chinese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in clinical settings.