Background: Patient-centered care aims to prevent disease and promote well-being by actively involving patients in treatment and decision-making that is based on respecting the patients and their families. However, no scales have been developed to assess patient-centered care from the nurse’s perspective. This study aimed to develop a scale to measure nurses’ level of patient-centered communication and confirm its validity and reliability. Methods: A methodological cross-sectional study was adopted to develop and validate the Patient-Centered Communication Scale (PCCS). The items were developed through a literature review and online interviews with nurses. Content validity was assessed by experts and the content validity index was calculated. A pretest of the questionnaire was conducted with 10 clinical nurses. To evaluate the factor structure and internal consistency reliability, the PCCS was administered online to 325 nurses in South Korea. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, explanatory factor analysis (EFA), and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA). Results: The final instrument consisted of 12 items and three factors: (1) information sharing, (2) patient-as-person, and (3) therapeutic alliance. EFA revealed a distinct three-factor structure, explaining 59.0% of the total variance. CFA confirmed the adequacy of the model fit and validated the inclusion of the final items. The Cronbach’s alpha values ranged from 0.60 to 0.77, indicating acceptable internal consistency. Convergent validity was evidenced by the correlation between the PCCS and a measure of interpersonal communication competence. Conclusions: The 12-item PCCS showed good reliability, construct validity, and convergent validity. The scale has utility for measuring the level of patient-centered communication skills in nurses.

Background: The prevalence of depression is higher among midlife women, and they have less control over their diabetes during the menopausal transition. However, there is limited evidence on the association between type 2 diabetes mellitus and depression among Korean women in their midlife. This study aimed to examine the association between type 2 diabetes mellitus and depression and explore the levels of awareness and treatment of depression among Korean midlife women with T2DM. Methods: This is a cross-sectional analysis study conducted using data from the Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys of 2014, 2016, and 2018. Korean women aged 40–64 years who randomly participated in the surveys were included, and 4,063 midlife women were selected as study participants. The diabetes progression status of the participants was classified into diabetes, pre-diabetes, and non-diabetes. Furthermore, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 was used for screening depression. Participants’ awareness rate, treatment rate among incident cases of depression, and treatment rate among awareness cases of depression were also analyzed. For data analysis, the Rao–Scott χ2 test, multiple logistic regression, and linear regression were conducted using SAS 9.4 software program. Results: The prevalence of depression significantly differed between diabetes, pre-diabetes, and non-diabetes groups. However, depression awareness, treatment/incident, and treatment/awareness rates did not differ statistically between the diabetes progression status groups. Compared to the non-diabetes group, diabetes group had a higher odds ratio of depression after adjusting for general and health-related factors. Thus, the diabetes group had significantly higher PHQ-9 scores than the non-diabetes group after adjusting for covariates. Conclusions: Women in their midlife who have type 2 diabetes mellitus tend to have higher levels of depressive symptoms and are at risk of depression. However, we found no significant differences between diabetes and non-diabetes regarding the awareness and treatment rates of depression in South Korea. We recommend that future studies focus on developing clinical practice guidelines aimed at additional screening and intervention for depression in midlife women with type 2 diabetes mellitus to ensure prompt treatment and improved outcomes.

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to determine the associations between type 2 diabetes mellitus and sleep-related symptoms among midlife women from four major racial/ethnic groups in the United States. Methods: The data from 164 participants of two larger Internet survey studies (62 women diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and 102 women without diabetes) were included. In the original studies, multiple instruments including the questions on background characteristics, health status, and menopause status and the Sleep Index for Midlife Women were used. The data were analyzed using χ² tests, independent t tests, Mann–Whitney U tests, and hierarchical multiple regression analyses. Results: The mean total number of sleep-related symptoms was significantly higher in those with type 2 diabetes (9.95 ± 5.83) than those without diabetes (7.25 ± 6.08) (t = 2.81, P = 0.006). The mean total severity score of sleep-related symptoms was also significantly higher in those with type 2 diabetes (33.42 ± 22.41) than those without diabetes (21.87 ± 21.40) (t = 3.29, P = 0.001). Among postmenopausal women and Asian women, there were significant differences in total numbers and total severity scores between those with type 2 diabetes and those without diabetes (all P < 0.05). When background characteristics, health status, and menopause status were controlled, having a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes was positively associated with total numbers (β=0.143, P = 0.047) and total severity scores (β=0.176, P = 0.014) of sleep-related symptoms. Conclusions: This secondary analysis supported significant associations of type 2 diabetes to sleep-related symptoms of midlife women from four major racial/ethnic groups in the United States.