ABSTRACT
The ATT39 (Dunn et al., 1986) is a measure of psychological adjustment to diabetes that was developed in response to the need for more specific measurement tools for the assessment of psychosocial issues in diabetes. Specific instruments were expected to provide more sensitive measurement of the dynamic psychological processes unique to diabetes and greater predictive validity than was available from the broad personality measures then in use. Early studies of psychological adjustment to diabetes at that time had focused on efforts to identify both a “diabetes personality” and a “compliant personality”. These studies proved unproductive (Simonds, 1981; Dunn & Turtle, 1981, Wilkinson, 1987; Dunn, 1986). More recently, there has been interest in the cognitive and behavioural strategies patients use to manage diabetes and emotional response.
