The Problem Areas in Diabetes Scale. An evaluation of its clinical utility.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the reliability and concurrent and discriminant validity of the Problem Areas in Diabetes (PAID) scale, a new measure of emotional functioning in diabetes.


METHODS
A battery of questionnaires, including the PAID, was completed by 256 volunteer diabetic outpatients. In our analyses, we examined the PAID's internal structure and compared mean IDDM and NIDDM treatment group scores in regression analyses to explore its discriminant validity. We also evaluated concurrent validity from the correlations between the PAID and diabetes-specific measures of coping and health attitudes and HbA1c.


RESULTS
Principal component analyses identified a large emotional adjustment factor, supporting the use of the total score. Significant sizable correlations were found between the PAID and a range of selected health attitudinal measures. There were significant differences (with small-to-moderate effect sizes) in PAID scores between IDDM and NIDDM patients and between IDDM and NIDDM insulin- and tablet-treated subgroups; no differences were found between NIDDM insulin- and tablet-treated subgroups.


CONCLUSIONS
The study findings provided support for the construct validity of the PAID, including evidence for discriminant validity from its ability to detect differences between IDDM and NIDDM treatment groups expected to differ in the emotional impact of life with diabetes. Future studies should explore the PAID's performance in nonspecialist treatment settings as well as its responsiveness to clinical change.
Welch
G W
GW
Mental Health Unit, Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA. gwelch@joslin.harvard.edu
Jacobson
A M
AM
Polonsky
W H
WH
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000328:Adult; D001294:Attitude to Health; D003710:Demography; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000523:psychology* / Q000628:therapy; D003922:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 1 / Q000523:psychology; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000523:psychology; D003927:Diet, Diabetic; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D004493:Education; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents / Q000627:therapeutic use; D007328:Insulin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
D007004:Hypoglycemic Agents; D007328:Insulin