Diabetes Distress in Emerging Adults: Refining the Problem Areas in Diabetes-Emerging Adult Version using Rasch Analysis.

The emotional burden of living with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) is experienced differently in each life stage. Thus the measurement of diabetes distress (DD) warrants tailoring to particular developmental stages, specifically emerging adulthood (ages 18-30). The new measure entitled the Problem Areas in Diabetes- Emerging Adult version (PAID-EA) is intended to be a developmentally-embedded measure of DD for use in clinical and research settings. The goal of the present study was to use Rasch psychometric analysis to reduce and refine the PAID-EA. Emerging adults with T1D (n = 194) completed the 30-item online survey. Evaluation of response category functioning, measurement precision, redundancy, unidimensionality and targeting guided item reduction through iterative revisions. The reduced and refined PAID-EA consists of 25 items and shows promising utility for clinicians and researchers.