Introduction: The Problem Area in Diabetes (PAID) questionnaire is a tool used to identify depression and psychological distress caused by diabetes. Considering the importance of rapid screening of these patients in primary care, PAID-5 can be very helpful in this regard. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the reliability and validity of PAID-5 for the first time in Iran. Materials and Methods: This study was conducted on 110 eligible patients with diabetes, admitted to Imam Hussein Hospital diabetic clinic in the city of Shahroudfor one year. Having employed short and long forms of the PAID questionnaire, the present study, then, used various statistical tools including exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha coefficient, Roc Curve, T-Test, ANOVA and Pearson correlation coefficient to analyze the collected data. Results: Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the PAID-5 was 0.75. The correlation coefficient between the average scores of PAID-5 and PAID-20 was 0.887. The results of exploratory factor analysis for PAID-5 explain 51 % of the total variance. The cut-off point obtained for the PAID-5 questionnaire was 8. Conclusion: The results show that the short form, like the long form, enjoys appropriate reliability and validity to identify diabetes-related depression and emotional distress in Iranian diabetic patients.