Reliability and validity study of the turkish version of illness cognition questionnaire

ABSTRACT AYKUL A. Reliability and Validity Study of the Turkish version of Illness Cognition Questionnaire, Başkent University, Institute of Health Sciences, Pyhsiotherapy and Rehabilitation Program, Ankara, 2018. The aim of this study was to determine the validity and reliability characteristics of the "Illness Cognition Questionnaire'' by adapting the Illness Cognition Questionnaire to Turkish which was developed by Evers and Kraaimaat. After permission was obtained from the author two forward and one back translation method was applied. A total of 205 patients who had pain related to chronic musculoskeletal diseases were referred to the study from outpatient clinic at Başkent University Ankara Hospital Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation. In order to achieve test-retest reliability of the questionnaire, 81 patients were re-applied after 2 days. At the beginning of the study, the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the individuals were questioned. The McGill Pain Questionnaire (Short Form) was used for pain assessment. In order to test the validity, a short disease perception questionnaire, hospital anxiety and depression questionnaire were administered together with the Illness Cognition Questionnaire. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was used to assessing the construct validity of the Illness Cognition Questionnaire and convergent and divergent validities was evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis. Cronbach's alpha internal consistency and test-retest reliability coefficients were calculated to determining the reliability level of the questionnaire. According to the confirmatory factor analysis results, the factor loadings of the helplessness subscale ranged from 0.78 to 0.85, the acceptance subscale ranged from 0.58 to 0.85, and the perceived benefits subscale ranged from 0.73 to 0.79. Internal consistency coefficients of the questionnaire were found 0.92 for the helplessness subscale; 0.86 for the acceptance subscale; and 0.89 for perceived benefits subscale. The results of the analysis showed that there was a statistically significant positive correlation between the initial measurement of helplessness subscale and the retest helplessness subscale at 0.69 level. A statistically significant positive correlation of 0.46 between the first test and the retest of the acceptance subscale was determined. Also, the statistically significant positive correlation of 0.66 between the first test and the retest was determined for the perceived benefits subscale. The Turkish version of the Illness Cognition Questionnaire was found to be valid and reliable. We could say that the Illness Cognition Questionnaire is a measurement evaluation tool that might be easily used at the clinic related to the application period is short and easy to understand. We think that the Illness Cognition Questionnaire, which provides a new awareness of illness perception in Turkish society, should be examined in different diseases and age groups. Key words: Illness cognition questionnaire, Turkish version, validity, reliability.