Background: Most of the currently available tools do not exhibit a meaningful correlation between self-management practices and glycemic control of diabetes patients. The Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire (DSMQ) has been developed to examine the self-management practices which are significantly associated with patients’ glycemic control. However, the Urdu version of this tool is not available, therefore, the objective of this study was to translate DSMQ in Urdu language and validate it type 2 diabetes people in Pakistan.
Method: DSMQ was translated in to Urdu language by using a standard forward-backward process. Psychometric properties of DSMQ-Urdu version has been evaluated form a 130 type 2 diabetes patients. Reliability and validity analysis of the translated DSMQ was done by using Cronbach’s coefficient α and confirmatory factor analysis.
Results: The sum scale and sub scales of DSMQ demonstrated a significant internal consistency. The overall Cronbach’s α for the Urdu version of DSMQ scale was 0.96. The Spearman correlation between HbA1c and DSMQ sum scale was -0.78 (p < 0.001). Linear regression analysis revealed that only Glucose Management and Dietary Control were significantly associated with lower HbA1c values (OR = -0.42, p = 0.004 and  = -0.30, p = 0.028, respectively), whereas, Physical Activity and Health-Care Use were not (p > 0.05). Adequate fit to the data was achieved for single factor model after successively modelling all significant correlations between the items’ error terms, with Chi2 = 106.6, df = 84, p = 0.049; TLI = 0.98, CFI = 0.99 and RMSEA = 0.05 (90% CI 0.01 – 0.07). Whereas a comparatively lower fit indices to data were observed in case of four factor model. 
Conclusion: The Urdu version of the DSMQ was observed to be a reliable and valid instrument for evaluating self-management practices related to glycaemic control in type 2 diabetes patients.

Psychometric properties of the Diabetes Self-Management Questionnaire (DSMQ) in Urdu