Diabetes distress scale-17 implementation among patients with diabetes: Turkish validity and reliability study

Objective: To prove reliability and validity of the Turkish version of diabetes distress scale. Methods: The cross-sectional study was conducted at Tepecik Training and Research Hospital, Izmir, Turkey, from July 2011 to February 2012, and comprised diabetics whose ages ranged from 25 to 86 years who voluntarily participated in the study. Descriptive statistics, exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were used for reliability and validity evaluations. SPSS 21 was used for data analysis. Results: Of the 165 patients, 87(52.7%) were women and 78(47.3%) were men. Overall, 32(19.4%) patients had normal weight, 52(31.5%) were overweight, 74(44.8%) were obese and 7(4.2%) were morbid obese. Mean age was 53.69 +/- 11.39 years. Mean score was 50.87 +/- 11.53 points (range: 23 to 84). As for distress distribution, 15(9.1%) patients had no problem (0-34 points), 141(85.5%) moderate (35-68 points) and 9(5.5%) had high (>68 points). Fasting blood glucose was higher than 200 mg/dl in 22(13.2%) patients. Conclusion: Turkish diabetes distress scale-17 was found to be valid and reliable and had satisfying fit-index parameters.