Revision And Preliminary Application Of The Chinese Version For Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form

Objective This study aimed to translate Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form (DES-SF) into Chinese and analyze the psychometric properties of this scale. Factors influencing empowerment of diabetes patients were also explored.Methods Chinese version of DES-SF was introduced into China Mainland through translating, back-translating and culturally adjusting of the original DES-SF. The reliability analysis included the Cronbach a coefficient and test-retest reliability. The validity analysis included face validity, content validity and convergent validity. The convenient sampling method was used to obtain the sample in one 3A hospital of Hangzhou, and 141 diabetes inpatients were recruited to participate in this investigation. Chinese Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form(C-DES-SF), General Self-efficacy Scale (GSES), Social Support Rating Scale(SSRS), Diabetes Specific Quality of Life (DSQL) were used together to collect the data. Descriptive analysis, test for several independent samples, bivariate correlation analysis and multiple linear regression analysis were carried out.Results The test-retest reliability coefficient of the C-DES-SF is 0.817. Cronbach a coefficient of the total score, which is an index of internal consistency reliability, is 0.848. The content validity ranges from 0.5 to 1.0, and C-DES-SF also shows good face validity. Convergent validity study indicates that the correlation between the total scores of C-DES-SF and the full scores of General Self-efficacy Scale(GSES) is 0.556 (p<0.01). One factor analysis shows that different scores of C-DES-SF are achieved for different diabetes inpatients. These factors include different kinds or levels of demographic characteristics or scale scores such as sex, education, job, marriage, length of diabetes, complications, excersise, girdle, total score of self-efficacy, total score of social support, objective score of social support, score of availability of social support and score of treatment subscale of DSQL. Multiple linear regressions show that self-efficacy, availability of social support and education level influence diabetes patients empowerment, where regression coefficient is 0.527,0.183 and 0.147 respectively.Conclusions Based on the psychometric property analyses, good levels of reliability and validity has been realized in the C-DES-SF for diaetes patients. Empowerment of diabetes inpatients could be influenced by patient's self-efficacy, availability of social support and education level.