Instrument Development to Measure Diabetic Clients Quality Of Life (DCQOL)

Diabetes, the most common endocrine disorder has an adverse effect on patient’s quality of life. Hence, the need for a valid means or instrument to assess te reliably quality of life of such patients. The objective of this research is to design and validate such an instrument. The Diabetic Clients Quality of life (DCQOL) instrument development process consists of 3 stages 1. Concept definition 2. Items selection and 3. Psychometrics properties (validity and reliability) of DCQOL.The first and second stages include literature reviews and semistructured interviews with diabetic patients clients. The third stage includes assessment of content validity, face validity, construct validity (factor analysis), criterion-related validity (concurrent validity), internal consistency (alpha Cronbach) and stability (test-retest reliability) of DCQOL. In this study 145 diabetic clients selected randomly from research centers were participated. The DCQOL was developed with 70 items in four dimensions (physical, psychological, social, disease and treatment) and global item about quality of life at five- point likert scale.The DCQOL included 61 items after content and face validity. The results of factor analysis revealed 45 items with physical, psychological, social, economical and disease and treatment factors for explanation of DCQOL construct. The results of criterion-related validity revealed linear, positive and significant relations between DCQOL and SF-36. The results of internal consistencey revealed alpha Cronbach of 0.88-0.93 for factors and 0.95 for DCQOL, and a test-retest reliability of 0.86-0.90 for factors and 0.92 for DCQOL. The, DCQOL,with 45 items five-point likert scale, is a valid and reliable means for assessing the quality of life of diabetics.