The Article in Brief

Background Diabetes distress is a condition in which patients with diabetes have concerns about managing their condition, receiving understanding and appropriate support from others, getting needed care, and feeling overwhelmed by the disease. Until now, there has been no time-efficient tool to help doctors screen patients for diabetes distress. This article reports the development of a diabetes distress screening tool.

What This Study Found The DDS2 is a brief, 2-question tool for detecting diabetes distress. For patients who screening test is positive for diabetes distress, a more detailed tool (the DDS17) can be administered. The DDS17 provides more information about the type of distress the patient is experiencing and helps guide treatment of those symptoms.

Implications

• The DDS2 and DDS17 are not substitutes for depression screening. Diabetes patients should be screened for both diabetes distress and depression.
• Future research is needed to determine whether patients with other chronic health conditions have similar types of distress.