| dc.description.abstract | The following study aimed to: (1) compose a French version ofAnderson
et al.'s (1989) original Diabetes Attitude Scale (DAS) by sampling 5 groups of
Quebec health care professionals; (2) increase the reliability and validity ofthe
DAS (Anderson et al., 1989) through the creation ofa revised version ofthis
instrument.
This scale, entitled the revised Diabetes Attitude Scale (DAS-R), was
developed through the efforts of a panel of 6 diabetes educators from Notre Dame
Hospital, Montreal, Quebec. Thirty-eight items, thirty-one of these with
Cronbach alphas greater than 0.37, were selected from the original DAS (1989)
and combined with 27 items that had been created by members of the panel to
form a 65-item scale. The items were revised by the panel and those deemed to
be redundant or to increase scale variability were dropped. A total of fifteen
items were dropped, and the final version of the scale contained 50 questions.
The 50 -item scale was then mailed to 478 health care professionals, nurses,
dietitians, physicians, pharmacists, and psychologists (specialists and
nonspecialists in diabetes care) in all regions of Quebec. Four-hundred additional
surveys were distributed to health care professionals through Quebec Diabetes
Association conferences.
The surveys were returned by 62 nurses, 49 dietitians, 149 physicians, 55
pharmacists, and 5 psychologists, totaling 320 returns (a return rate of 36%). The
returned surveys were analyzed, and a 37-item DAS-R composed of 8 subscales resulted. Evidence for the reliability and validity ofthe 37-item DAS-R are
included in this study.
The Diabetes Behaviour Scale (DBS) was created to provide evidence for
the validity of the DAS-R. This 13-item scale was developed specifically to
accompany the DAS-R and is a measure ofdiabetes management-related
behaviours applicable to physicians. The development ofthe DBS was based on
information obtained from specialized texts in diabetes care and opinions from a
specialist in diabetes care and education (Notre Dame Hospital, Montreal). The
scale is comprised of questions based on various behavioural issues appropriate to
diabetes care (i.e. are patients referred to cardiologists, ophthalmologists when
required? Does the physician attend diabetes workshops, seminars? Are patients
referred to outpatient education clinics?). An item analysis ofthe scale revealed
that 7 items had poor item-total correlations. These were dropped from further
analyses. The resulting 6-item scale had a satisfactory Cronbach alpha value
(alpha= .48).
Analyses of the results showed that there were significant correlations
between two ofthe DAS-R subscales and the DBS. This is the first time in
diabetes care research that an attempt at discovering a correlation between
attitudes and behaviours has been accomplished using scales derived specifically
for their measurement. The relationship between attitudes and behaviours found
in this study supports Ajzen and Fishbein's theory of reasoned action. | |
