Psychometric properties of diabetic patients self-care scale in Iranian population (DSCS-I): an exploratory factor analysis study (DSCS-I): an exploratory factor analysis study

self-care is one of the best and most cost-effective measures to deal with diabetes, which has attracted a lot of attention today. The aim of the current study was psychometric self-care tools for diabetic patients in Qazvin medical centers in Iran.

The present study was of methodological type. The statistical population was all the patients in the medical centers of Qazvin city. The sample size was determined to be 256 people. After collecting the data, it was subjected to exploratory factor analysis with the principal component analysis (PCA) method. SPSS software was used for data analysis. Also, Kaiser-Meier and Bartlett's test was used to measure the adequacy of the sample and the significance of the results.

The average age of the participants in the study was 59.12±11.14 and the average years of diabetes was 10.76±7.55. The results of exploratory factor analysis showed that self-care of diabetic people was observed in four factors. The first factor was healthy eating, the second factor was physical activity, the third factor was blood sugar monitoring, and the fourth factor was checking the health of the feet. The results showed that four explanatory factors of self-care can explain 95.22% of the variance of self-care in diabetic patients.

The psychometric analysis of the diabetes self-care Scale in the Iranian population showed that the self-care Scale (DSCS-I) had very good validity and reliability. Therefore, it is necessary to use this Scale to check the self-care status of diabetic patients.