De Wit M, Winterdijk P, Aanstoot HJ, Anderson B, Danne T, Deeb L, Lange K, Nielsen AØ, Skovlund S, Peyrot M, Snoek F; DAWN Youth Advisory Board.

Assessing diabetes-related quality of life in youth with type 1 diabetes in routine clinical care: the MIND Youth Questionnaire (MY-Q). Pediatr Diabetes. 2012;13:638-46.

Finding out the extent to which diabetes is affecting  quality of life (QoL) of youth with type 1 diabetes is an important step towards optimizing care. Diabeter staff took a key role in developing the Monitoring Individual Needs in Diabetes (MIND) Youth Questionnaire (MY-Q) – a multi-dimensional self-report health-related QoL instrument, and the first to be especially designed for use in pediatric diabetes care.

 

This report describes the development, evaluation, and validation of the 36-item MY-Q, which consist of seven subscales: social impact, diabetes control perceptions, responsibility, worries, treatment satisfaction, and body image and eating behavior. The questionnaire also evaluates general health-related QoL and emotional well-being.

 

The evaluation of My-Q was based on interviews with 22 teenagers, plus an additional 84 teenagers with type 1 diabetes who also completed the Pediatric Quality of Life Inventory (PedsQL) modules (general and diabetes-related).

 

Key findings:

• Overall, Cronbach’s alpha – a measure of reliability on a scale of 0-1 – for MY-Q was 0.80.
• There were also strong correlations between the total MY-Q score and the PedsQL general and diabetes-related scores, confirming the validity of the new score.
• Higher HbA1c, signifying poorer control, was significantly associated with lower diabetes control perceptions, worries, and body image and eating behavior scores.
• Younger age was significantly associated with higher diabetes control perceptions and body image and eating behavior scores, and with lower responsibility scores.

 

Concluding, the developers of MY-Q said the new questionnaire 

For PubMed abstract click here.