A diabetes-specific measure of patient desire to participate in medical decision making.
The goal of this study was to develop a diabetes-specific scale of patient desire to participate in medical decision making (DPMD) and examine its internal consistency reliability, stability, and validity (content, discriminant, convergent, and construct).



In a cross-sectional study, 65 patients with type 2 diabetes from a teaching hospital's general medical clinic were interviewed at baseline and 2 weeks later to measure their DPMD scores. Data were collected on demographic/clinical features, health value, social support, desire to make a final decision, and value of patient autonomy.



Of the 11 DPMD items, 2 distinct factors emerged representing desire for discussion and desire for information. The DPMD scale had high internal consistency reliability, was stable over 2 weeks and demonstrated good content validity. DPMD scale items were more correlated with each other than with health value or social support. Overall, patients who obtained diabetes education reported greater desire to participate in decisions. Younger patients had a greater overall desire for discussion. The DPMD desire for discussion subscale correlated with patients' desire to make the final treatment decision but not with patients' value of autonomy.



The DPMD is a brief, reliable, valid measure for assessing patient desire to participate in diabetes medical decision making.
Golin
C E
CE
The Division of General Internal Medicine and Sheps Center for Health Ser­vices Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill(Dr Golin)
DiMatteo
M R
MR
The Division of General Internal Medicine and Sheps Center for Health Ser­vices Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill(Dr Golin)|The De­partment of Psychology, University of Cal­ifornia, Riverside (Dr DiMatteo)
Leake
B
B
The Department of Family Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (Drs Leake and Gelberg)|School of Nursing, University of California, Los Angeles (Dr Leake)
Duan
N
N
The Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles (Dr Duan)
Gelberg
L
L
The Department of Family Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles (Drs Leake and Gelberg)
D001294:Attitude to Health; D003142:Communication; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003924:Diabetes Mellitus, Type 2 / Q000523:psychology*; D005006:Ethnicity; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D010358:Patient Participation; D010817:Physician-Patient Relations; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D014481:United States