%0 Journal Article
%T Validation of the diabetes, hypertension and hyperlipidemia (DHL) knowledge instrument in Malaysia
%A Pauline SM Lai
%A Siew Siang Chua
%A Ching Hooi Tan
%A Siew Pheng Chan
%J BMC Medical Research Methodology
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/1471-2288-12-18
%X A 28-item instrument which comprised of 5 domains: diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, medications and general issues was designed and tested. One point was given for every correct answer, whilst zero was given for incorrect answers. Scores ranged from 0 to 28, which were then converted into percentage. This was administered to 77 patients with type 2 diabetes in a tertiary hospital, who were on medication(s) for diabetes and who could understand English (patient group), and to 40 pharmacists (professional group). The DHL knowledge instrument was administered again to the patient group after one month. Excluded were patients less than 18 years old.Flesch reading ease was 60, which is satisfactory, while the mean difficulty factor(SD) was 0.74(0.21), indicating that DHL knowledge instrument was moderately easy. Internal consistency of the instrument was good, with Cronbach's ¦Á = 0.791. The test-retest scores showed no significant difference for 26 out of the 28 items, indicating that the questionnaire has achieved stable reliability. The overall mean(SD) knowledge scores was significantly different between the patient and professional groups [74.35(14.88) versus 93.84(6.47), p < 0.001]. This means that the DHL knowledge instrument could differentiate the knowledge levels of participants. The DHL knowledge instrument shows similar psychometric properties as other validated questionnaires.The DHL knowledge instrument shows good promise to be adopted as an instrument for assessing diabetic patients' knowledge concerning their disease conditions and medications in Malaysia.Diabetes and its complications pose a major health-care burden worldwide and present major challenges to patients, health-care systems, and national economies. The World Health Organization estimates that between 2000 and 2030, the world population will increase by 37% and the number of people with diabetes will increase by 114% [1]. Asia will be the major site of a rapidly emerging diabetes epidem
%K Validation
%K Diabetes
%K Knowledge instrument
%K Malaysia
%U http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2288/12/18