The validity and reliability of the English version of the diabetes distress scale for type 2 diabetes patients in Malaysia

BACKGROUND: Several disease specific instruments have been developed to identify and assess diabetes distress. In Malaysia, the Problem Areas in Diabetes Scale has been validated in Malay, but it does not have specific domains to assess the different areas of diabetes-related distress. Hence, we decided to use the Diabetes Distress Scale instead. To date, only the Malay version of the Diabetes Distress Scale has been validated in Malaysia. However, English is widely spoken by Malaysians, and is an important second language in Malaysia. Therefore, our aim was to determine the validity and reliability of the English version of the Diabetes Distress Scale among patients with type 2 diabetes in Malaysia. METHODS: The Diabetes Distress Scale was administered to 114 patients with type 2 diabetes, who could understand English, at baseline and 4 weeks later, at a primary care clinic in Malaysia. To assess for convergent validity, the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale was administered at baseline. Discriminative validity was assessed by analysing the total diabetes distress scores of participants with poor (Hb(A1c) > 7.0%) and good glycaemic control (Hb(A1c) ≤ 7.0%). RESULTS: The majority of our participants were male 65(57.0%), with a median duration of diabetes of 9.5 years. Exploratory factor analysis showed that the Diabetes Distress Scale had 4 subscales, as per the original Diabetes Distress Scale. The overall Cronbach’s α was 0.920 (range = 0.784–0.859 for each subscale). The intraclass correlation ranged from 0.436 to 0.643 for test-retest. The Diabetes Distress Scale subscales were significantly correlated with the different subscales of the Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (spearman’s rho range = 0.427–0.509, p < 0.001). Patients with poor glycaemic control had significantly higher diabetes distress score (1.88) compared to those with good glycaemic control (1.50) (p < 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: The English version of the Diabetes Distress Scale was found to be a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate diabetes distress among patients with type 2 diabetes in Malaysia. It can be used in clinical practice to offer a useful indicator of the effect of diabetes-induced distress during clinic visits, especially for patients with poor glycemic control. This would ensure that these patients are provided the care that is required. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12875-017-0601-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.