Psychometric properties of the Pediatric Testing Attitudes Scale-Diabetes (P-TAS-D) for parents of children undergoing predictive risk screening.

OBJECTIVE

Examine the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the Pediatric Testing Attitudes Scale-Diabetes (P-TAS-D), a measure of parental attitudes about predictive risk screening for type 1 diabetes in children.

METHODS

Surveys were completed by 3720 Swedish parents of children participating in the adolescent follow-up of a birth cohort study of type 1 diabetes onset. Parents averaged 43.5 years, 42.3% were college-educated, and 10.6% of children had a family history of type 1 diabetes. The parent sample was randomly divided, an exploratory factor analysis (EFA; n = 1860) was conducted, followed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA; n = 1860) and testing.

RESULTS

EFA/CFA revealed the P-TAS-D has three factors/scales: Attitudes and Beliefs toward type 1 diabetes predictive risk screening (α = 0.92), Communication about risk screening results (α = 0.71), and Decision Making (r = 0.19, p < 0.001). This solution fit the data well (χ(2) [42] = 536.0, RMSEA = 0.08, CFI = 0.95) and internal consistency for the full scale was high (α = 0.86, M = 36.2, SD = 8.2). After adjusting for covariates, more favorable attitudes toward children's risk screening were associated with greater worry about type 1 diabetes (B = 1.1, p < 0.001), less worry about health overall (B = -0.10, p = 0.001), and more positive attitudes toward (B = 0.28, p < 0.001) and less worry about (B = 0.41, p < 0.001) diabetes research.

CONCLUSIONS

The P-TAS-D is a stable, reliable, and valid measure for assessing parents' type 1 diabetes risk screening attitudes. Scale data can help target parent education efforts in risk screening trials.