Validation of WHOQOL-BREF in Malayalam and Determinants of Quality of Life Among People With Type 2 Diabetes in Kerala, India

Abstract

Quality of life (QOL) is an important health outcome in people with chronic conditions like diabetes and WHOQOL-BREF is a popular instrument used worldwide to assess QOL. However, QOL varies considerably from society to society depending on the culture of the person. Hence, the WHOQOL-BREF was translated to the local language, Malayalam. This article attempts to establish reliability, construct and discriminant validity of the translated WHOQOL-BREF, and determinants of QOL among people with type 2 diabetes. A cross-sectional study was undertaken among 200 patients with diabetes attending a primary care center in a rural area of Kerala, India. The translated version of WHOQOL-BREF was found to be internally consistent (Cronbach’s α = .86) and demonstrated discriminant and construct validity. Education was found to be an independent determinant of QOL in the physical, psychological, and environmental domains. Thus, the translated version had good psychometric properties and education was an independent determinant of QOL in 3 of 4 domains.

Quality of life and diabetes mellitus among diabetic adult patients in an urban slum area

“…10 They noted that as the culture varies from one society to another, the quality of life results also we get are different. Hence the authors signified the importance of using local language for the studies on quality of life.…”

Impact of Health Education on Quality of Life in Egyptian Type 2 Diabetic Patients.

“…About fifty percent of mortality related to diabetes in this region occurs in patients under the age of sixty years (Sreedevi et., 2016). In Egypt, the comparative diabetes prevalence was 16.9% with 3,123,700 affected adult males and 4,199,500 affected adult females (Whiting et al, 2011).…”

“…As ethnicity, culture, beliefs, and social realities moderate the perception of the patients about their illness (Sreedevi et al, 2016). So; this study was aiming to assessthe QoL in Egyptian type 2 diabetics and the impact of health education intervention.…”

“…A study in India also showed that education for foot care in diabetics in primary care settings reduced the burden of foot ulcers (Saurabh et al, 2014 (Sreedevi et al, 2016). This can be explained by a variety of reasons that might inflence the diffrences in results, like cultural and contextual issues, differences in peoples' socio-demographic characteristics, the different features of the disease in different people.…”

“…In our study level of education had no effect on QoL score and this point needs more validation for the cause of indifference in further studies (Sreedevi et al, 2016). …”