Arabic version of the simplified diabetes knowledge scale: psychometric and linguistic validation

INTRODUCTION: the simplified diabetes knowledge scale is used to obtain a general assessment of diabetic´s knowledge about diabetes and its care. For clinical and methodological purposes, it was relevant and necessary to develop an Arabic version of this instrument. Thus, the aim of this study was to translate and validate the simplified diabetes knowledge scale (SDKS) into Arabic to measure the knowledge of Arabic-speaking diabetics. METHODS: a methodological validation study of the simplified diabetes knowledge scale, following the guidelines of Vallerand was carried out. A convenience sample of diabetics followed in eight basic health centers in Sousse region and in Farhat Hached and Sahloul University Hospitals was recruited. An Arabic questionnaire including the demographic and clinical data of the diabetic and the final experimental version of the simplified diabetes knowledge scale was used. RESULTS: a sample of 333 diabetics was recruited. Content validity of the final experimental version was 0.94. Reliability assessed by Cronbach´s alpha coefficient (0.812), by test-retest correlation coefficient (> 0.60) and by internal consistency after deletion of each item (from 0.788 to 0.816) were acceptable except items 19 and 20 which had to be reformulated. Construct validity analysis identified that three items among the 20 ones (12, 17 and 20) required reformulation. Inter-item correlation matrix showed that the majority of items were not correlated with each other. Validation process was ended by establishing standards table. CONCLUSION: this study showed the Arabic version of the simplified diabetes knowledge scale had good validity and reliability.