The validity and reliability of POFA (Pictures of Facial Affects) in Turkish society and comparison with patients with essential tremor.

Aim: In this study, it was planned to analysis the validity and reliability of POFA for Turkish population and analysing the results of patients with essential tremor (ET). Material and Method: It was made two different criterion-dependent validity studies and test-retest reliability study. Also Eyes test was used because it had already been made validity study in Turkey. In one of the criterion-dependent validity studies it was compared the results of POFA and EYES in the healthy participants (N=82). In addition the Short Form POFA was created by choosing the most known facial expressions between in POFA pictures. In the other criterion-dependent validity study was compared the results of POFA from healthy (N=18) and essential tremor (N=18) groups. In the reliability study it was made test-retest with Short Form POFA to a new healthy group (N=22). The statistical analysis of the results was made with the IBM SPSS 20 Programme. The statistical differences between healthy group and essential tremor group were analysed by test-retest. The relations between of the variables were analysed by Pearson correlation analysis. Findings: Between the healthy group's total scores of POFA and EYES, were found highly correlations with test-retest reliability analysis (r=0.44, p<0.01). According the variables of the healthy and ET groups, was found significant differences between the total scores of the POFA (t(34)=3,32; p<0,01) and the total scores of the Eyes (t(34)=2,09; p<0,05), in the test-retest analysis. Results:These findings point that POFA has criterion-dependent construct validity and test-retest reliability, and POFA can discriminate to ET group from healthy group, and healthy group can well recognize the happy, sad, fear and disgust expressions in the POFA Short Form. Keywords: Emotional facial expressions, esansiyel tremor, EYES, validity and reliability, POFA.