Validation of the diabetes awareness and knowledge test for medical and nursing students

Introduction: Diabetes awareness and knowledge is a preliminary step towards controlling and limiting the diabetes burden globally. There is a pressing need for creating validated tests of knowledge and awareness for different targeted groups.Objective: To create and validate diabetes awareness and knowledge (DAK) test for medical and nursing students. Methods: We created a 47 item 50 marks English DAK test with questions from different domains of diabetes like basics of diabetes: types, symptoms, pathophysiology and diagnosis of diabetes, its risk factors, basic knowledge about treatment of diabetes including diet and activity and prevention of diabetes and its complications. Content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI) for each question and full test was evaluated. This test was administered to 53 medical and nursing students and Cronbach's coefficient α was used to calculate the test reliability.Results: According to the responses from 8 endocrinologists, the scale CVI and the CVR were acceptable (0.98 and 0.82 respectively). The median DAK score and percentage were higher in medical students as compared to nursing students [36.75 (7.5)] vs [33(6.0)] marks and [72.5 (15)%] vs [66(12)%] respectively (p = 0.001 for both). The Cronbach's coefficient α was 0.77 for the test, which is acceptable.Conclusion: The DAK test is a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate diabetes awareness and knowledge in medical and nursing students.