Aim: To develop and initially validate the Diabetes Self-Stigma Scale for assessing self-stigma in people with diabetes.
Design: Scale development and evaluation.
Methods: Participants were 399 patients with diabetes. In phase 1, initial items were generated based on the concept analysis of diabetes self-stigma. Moreover, content validity was established by diabetes experts. Phase 2 evaluated structural validity through item analysis, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. Reliability was evaluated by examining stability and internal consistency.
Results: The findings revealed that the self-stigma scale for patients with diabetes is a valid and reliable instrument. The Diabetes Self-Stigma Scale was confirmed with 16 items. It consists of four domains: comparative inability, social withdrawal, self-devaluation and apprehensive feeling. The scale developed in this study can measure self-stigma in diabetes patients and can be used as an intervention to reduce self-stigma.
Keywords: diabetes mellitus; nursing; reliability; scale development; social stigma; validation.
© 2020 The Authors. Nursing Open published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.