BACKGROUND: Determining the health educational needs of people living with diabetes is essential in developing patient-centered, structured health education programs that aim to improve the outcome of diabetes care. OBJECTIVES: To develop a tool for the identification of the health education needs of individuals living with diabetes in the Jazan Armed Forces Hospital (JAFH) and to standardize the questionnaire through the assessment of its reliability and validity. METHODS: A cross-sectional design was used in the present work, which included 303 participants living with diabetes. The researchers and an expert panel in family medicine and endocrinology created a comprehensive and mutually exhaustive questionnaire covering every potential area of health education needs. It included a 15-item section with questions on a 5-point Likert scale for determining the participants' needs for health education. Cronbach's alpha was used to determine the Likert scale's reliability. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the Likert scale's construct validity. RESULTS: The total number of males was 123 (40.6%) and that of females was 180 (59.4%). Their mean ages were 55.9 ± 12.9, ranging from 18 to 94 years. The reliability of the 15-item Likert scale was 83%, and it increased to 90% when the redundant items (n = 5) were eliminated. The test had an 86% test-retest reliability when repeated. Also, the final 10-item Likert scale has significant face, content, and construct validity. Two components with eigenvalues over 1 (generic knowledge about diabetes, and diabetes and travel) could be extracted out of the 10-item Likert scale. CONCLUSION: The final 10-item Likert scale offers a good degree of validity and reliability for determining the health education needs of individuals living with diabetes. The two Likert scale components (general information on diabetes, and diabetes and travel) and their contributing items were identified from the questionnaire, which is standardized and helpful in both practice and research, in order to ascertain patients' needs and develop structured health education programs. The component "General information about diabetes" exhibited significant associations with the following items: diabetes risk factors and prevention
common oral agents for treating hypoglycemia
HbA1c (glycosylated hemoglobin) and normal blood glucose levels
and acute problems related to diabetes, such as hypoglycemia and diabetic ketoacidosis. On the other hand, diabetes and fasting
chronic complications of diabetes
and the significance of the yearly eye screening were the Likert scale items that contributed more to Component 2 (diabetes and travel).