Background and purpose: Assessing the stress of patient with diabetes requires reliable and valid instruments. This study evaluated the measurement properties of the Brazilian version of the Diabetes Distress Scale (B-DDS).
Methods: This cross-sectional study enrolled 139 patients with Type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM2) receiving outpatient treatment. Reliability and construct validity were estimated through convergent validity and confirmatory factor analysis.
Results: Evidence of reliability was obtained-Cronbach alpha = .87 and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) = .93. Significant positive correlations of moderate-to-strong magnitudes were observed between the dimensions of the DDS and the total score of the PAID; the confirmatory factor analysis supported the four dimensions of the original instrument.
Conclusions: The B-DDS is reliable and valid for evaluation of the stress related to diabetes mellitus.