Objective. To design and test the reliability and validity of
a brief, treatment-focused version of the Diabetes Quality of
Life (DQOL) questionnaire for use with both type 1 and type 2
diabetes.
Research design and methods. Questionnaire packets including
the DQOL, measures of current diabetes self-care behaviors, and
demographic and health characteristics were mailed to 1,080 adults
with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. A total of 498 patients returned
completed packets. A three-stage statistical process was used to
understand the underlying structure of the DQOL and to identify items
most predictive of self-care behaviors and satisfaction with diabetes
control.
Results. Principal components analysis, conducted on 26 items
predictive of the main criteria, identified five key underlying
factors. For each component, best subset regression analysis
was conducted to identify nonredundant questions that best explained
self-care behaviors and satisfaction with diabetes control.
A combined set of 15 questions was reliable (alpha = 0.85) and
valid, though several questions were more relevant to type 1 or
type 2 diabetes. For patients with type 1 diabetes, the 15-item brief
inventory was equally or more effective at predicting self-care
behaviors (shortened scale R2 = 0.360; full scale
R2 = 0.254) and satisfaction with diabetes control
(shortened scale R2 = 0.562; full scale
R2 = 0.580) than the original 60-item DQOL. For
type 2 diabetic patients, only satisfaction with diabetes control was
well-predicted, but the 15-item inventory accounted for as much
variance as the original 60-item DQOL (shortened scale
R2 = 0.513; full scale R2 = 0.492).
Conclusions. The 15-item DQOL Brief Clinical Inventory provides
a total health?#8364;“related quality of life score that predicts
self-reported diabetes care behaviors and satisfaction with
diabetes control as effectively as the full version of the
instrument. In addition, it provides a vehicle for quickly screening
patients for readiness and specific treatment-related concerns. It
takes about 10 minutes to administer and can be used to identify
quality of life issues that might not arise during the typical
patient-provider encounter.