Diabetes-Specific Risk Taking—Psychometric Properties of a Measure for Adolescents with Type 1 Diabetes (T1D)

Among people with T1D, adolescents have the poorest adherence and worst glycemic control of any other age group, despite recent advances in treatment and technology. Clinically, adolescents are known to take risks with their diabetes care (e.g., driving without first checking blood glucose), but these risky diabetes behaviors have not been empirically studied. We report psychometric properties of the new 31-item Diabetes-Specific Risk-Taking Inventory (DSRI) for youth 15-18 years old. On the DSRI, youth report the frequency they engaged in 31 diabetes-specific risk-taking behaviors over the past year. We surveyed a national sample of 224 adolescents (participants in the T1Dx registry) (M age=16.4±1.1, 47% female, M A1c=8.3±1.3, 76.8% on insulin pumps) in a cross-sectional design. Participants completed the DSRI as well as measures of adherence, general risk-taking, executive functioning, depressive symptoms, and incidence of severe hypoglycemia and DKA over the past year, using a secure web portal, RedCap. The DSRI demonstrated excellent internal reliability (internal consistency: α=.90; item-total correlations: r range=.21-.64). Construct validity was demonstrated through significant associations (all p Disclosure R.M. Wasserman: None. S.R. Patton: None. M.A. Clements: Speaker9s Bureau; Self; Medtronic. Advisory Panel; Self; Glooko, Inc.. J.H. Finch: None. K. Boschert: None. D.D. Schwartz: None. B. Anderson: Advisory Panel; Self; Sanofi-Aventis.