Psychometric Evaluation of the Diabetes Symptom Checklist-Revised (DSC-R)—A Measure of Symptom Distress

Nov 1, 2009, 00:00
10.1111/j.1524-4733.2009.00571.x
https://www.valueinhealthjournal.com/article/S1098-3015(10)60323-3/fulltext
Title : Psychometric Evaluation of the Diabetes Symptom Checklist-Revised (DSC-R)—A Measure of Symptom Distress
Citation : https://www.valueinhealthjournal.com/action/showCitFormats?pii=S1098-3015(10)60323-3&doi=10.1111/j.1524-4733.2009.00571.x
First page :
Section Title :
Open access? : No
Section Order : 14

Objective

To assess the psychometric validity, reliability, responsiveness, and minimal important differences of the Diabetes Symptoms Checklist-Revised (DSC-R), a widely used patient-reported outcome measure of diabetes symptom distress.

Research Design and Methods

Psychometric validity of the DSC-R was assessed using blinded data from a large-scale trial of approximately 4000 type 2 diabetes patients. Confirmatory factorial analysis (CFA) and multitrait analysis were used to examine the construct validity of the structure of DSC-R. DSC-R internal consistency, discriminative validity, and responsiveness were also assessed. Distribution and anchor-based methods were used to estimate minimal important differences for DSC-R domains.

Results

Mean age of the sample was 56 years, 42% were female, 88% were Caucasian. Patients had a mean body mass index (BMI) of 32.2 and mean glucose-fasting level of 151.7 md/dl. CFA and multitrait analysis indicated that the scoring of the DSC-R has acceptable construct validity. Item-scale correlations ranged from 0.44 to 0.78. Cronbach's alpha coefficients ranged from 0.69 to 0.87. At baseline, DSC-R scores were higher among patients with higher BMI scores (P 0.0001), supporting the discriminative validity of the DSC-R. Minimal important difference estimates ranged from 0.39 to 0.60 points when using distribution methods and from 0.00 to 0.33 when estimated using anchor-based methods.

Conclusions

The DSC-R demonstrated excellent psychometric properties when tested in a large-scale diabetes clinical trial. Responsiveness and test–retest reliability of the DSC-R warrant further evaluation.

Categories :
  • Instrument Development, Validation, & Translation
  • Methodological & Statistical Research
  • Patient-Centered Research
  • PRO & Related Methods
  • Study Approaches
  • Survey Methods
  • Surveys & Expert Panels
Tags :
  • diabetes
  • patient reported outcome
  • psychometric validation
  • quality of life
  • symptom distress
Regions :
  • Western Europe
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