Abstract

Objectives

To translate, revise, and validate the Diabetes Distress Scale (DDS) instrument for Indonesian type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) outpatients with various complications.

Methods

Participants were recruited from four hospitals and two primary health care centers. The study was performed with forward and backward translations, an adaptation testing with a small subset of participants, and validation analysis. Factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation and promax rotation was then used to investigate the instrument structure. Internal consistency among the items was estimated using Cronbach α for each domain of the DDS.

Results

In total, 324 participants (246 from the hospitals and 78 from the primary health care centers) were involved in this study. To improve participant comprehension of the exact meaning of questions, examples of daily activities for patients with T2DM (e.g., diet, exercise, and adherence to therapy) were added to some questions after the translation and revision procedures. The factor analysis revealed a correlation among the four factors ranging from 0.40 to 0.67. The factor loadings of selected items from the four factors ranged from 0.41 to 0.98. The order of the four factors in the factor analysis was as follows: interpersonal distress, emotional burden, physician distress, and regimen distress. The internal consistency for the four domains ranged from 0.78 to 0.83. The instrument resulting from this study was labeled “DDS17 Bahasa Indonesia.”

Conclusions

The DDS17 Bahasa Indonesia provides an initial psychometric validation study, factor structure, and internal consistency for assessing the distress of Indonesian T2DM outpatients. Use of this instrument in future research and clinical trials is recommended for the Indonesian context.