Translation and psychometric properties of the Persian version of self-management of type 1 diabetes for adolescents

Background: The present study was conducted to translate and assess the validation of the measure of self-management of type 1 diabetes for adolescents that developed by Schilling et al [Schilling LS, Knafl KA, Grey M. Changing patterns of self-management in youth with type I diabetes. J Pediatr Nurs 2006;21:412-24]. Methods: The first stage of the study involved the translation of the measure of self-management of type 1 diabetes for adolescents into Persian based on the model proposed by Wild et al. in two versions [Wild D, Grove A, Martin M, Eremenco S, McElroy S, et al. Principles of good practice for the translation and cultural adaptation process for patient-reported outcomes (PRO) measures: report of the ISPOR task force for translation and cultural adaptation. Value Health 2005;8:94-104; Wild D, Eremenco S, Mear I, Martin M, Houchin C, et al. Multinational trials - recommendations on the translations required, approaches to using the same language in different countries, and the approaches to support pooling the data: the ISPOR patient-reported outcomes translation and linguistic validation good research practices task force report. Value Health 2009;12:430-40]. The translated versions were reviewed in consultation sessions with experts and the more appropriate items were selected and the final version was translated back into English in two versions and was then sent to the measure's designer for confirmation. The content validity of the measure was then evaluated by a group of experts and found to be acceptable. The next stage evaluated the measure's construct validity. This measure contains 52 items classified under five subscales. The confirmatory factor analysis was performed to assess the measure's construct validity and was found to be acceptable. For evaluating the reliability of the measure, its internal consistency was assessed through calculating its Cronbach's alpha and intra-class correlation. The measure's consistency was measured through calculating its test-retest reliability. Results: The assessment of the measure's content validity revealed a content validity index of 0.98. For the construct validity of the measure using the confirmatory factor analysis, the following figures were obtained: NFI = 0.97, RMSA = 0.001, AGFI = 0.81, IFI = 0.833, GFI = 0.83. In the assessment of the measure's reliability, the intra-class correlation showed an overall Cronbach's alpha of 0.88. The test-retest showed a consistency of 0.73 for the measure. Conclusions: The validation of the 48-item measure revealed that it can be used in the population of Iranian adolescents with type 1 diabetes (8 items changed their subscales and 4 items were removed).