Design and psychometric assessment of self-care scale in patients with major depressive disorder in patients referred to specialized clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 2022-2023

Abstract

Depression is one of the most common mental disorders in the general population worldwide, and its prevalence increases annually. Depression is classified as a chronic disorder, which shows the importance of the need for these patients to receive long-term treatment and care. Considering the high prevalence of depression in the general population and the need to pay attention to self-care programs in the treatment of these patients, and considering that no tool has been designed in Iran to measure the self-care status of people with depression, this study aimed to design and psychometrically assess a self-care tool in patients with major depressive disorder who referred to specialized clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences in 1401 and 1402. Methods: The present study was a cross-sectional research that was conducted in the second half of 1401 and the first half of 1402 at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. The statistical population of this research was patients with major depressive disorder referring to specialized clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. In this study, three demographic information questionnaires, PHQ-9 questionnaire and main questionnaire which included 31 questions related to self-care methods were used to collect data. Questionnaires were provided to the target groups through available sampling of patients referred to specialized psychiatric clinics of Tabriz University of Medical Sciences and also through snowball sampling using the same people, and the resulting answers were included in the study. Finally, the data was entered into SPSS software version 25, and indicators such as CVR, CVI and reliability coefficient were used to describe the psychometric characteristics of the questionnaire. Results: Based on the results, in this study, a 29-item questionnaire consisting of 9 factors was obtained. The total content validity index of the questionnaire was 0.94 and the total content validity ratio was 0.81 that was an indicator of appropriate content validity. The internal correlation coefficient and Cronbach's alpha obtained from the test-retest method for this questionnaire were obtained as 0.82 and 0.90, respectively, and the reliability of the questionnaire was confirmed. Based on the results of the study, the mean score (standard deviation) of self-care in patients with depression participating in this study was 91.33 (16.37). The results of the one-way analysis of variance test showed that the mean score of self-care has a significant difference in the levels of depression. Thus, the self-care score of people with depression is lower than that of people without depression, and as the severity of depression increases, the self-care score decreases.