Measures of psychological well-being and treatment satisfaction developed from the responses of people with tablet-treated diabetes

Abstract

Psychological outcome measures of Well-being and Treatment Satisfaction have been designed and developed for people with tablet-treated Type 2 diabetes. The Well-being scale includes three six-item sub-scales to measure Depression, Anxiety, and Positive Well-being. A prime consideration when selecting items for the psychological well-being measures was to minimize the confounding of diabetic symptomatology with the somatic symptoms of depression and anxiety. Cronbach's alpha indicated that each of the Well-being sub-scales and the Treatment Satisfaction scale was internally reliable (alphas ranged from 0.70 to 0.88) and evidence for construct validity was provided by predicted associations with other variables collected at the time of the study. For example, lower Well-being scores were associated with being overweight (Depression: p less than 0.05; Anxiety: p less than 0.001) while greater Satisfaction with Treatment was associated with lower HbA1 levels (p less than 0.001) and lower percent ideal body weight (p less than 0.01). These scales should prove particularly useful where measures of quality of life are required to complement metabolic variables when evaluating new treatments, education programmes, and other interventions, or in the routine auditing of established methods of treatment.