The validity and reliability of the Turkish version of the inflammatory arthritis facilitators and barriers to physical activity questionnaire

The aim of this study was to adapt the questionnaire of Inflammatory arthritis Facilitators And Barriers to Physical activity (IFAB) questionnaire to Turkish and to examine its validity and reliability in individuals with inflammatory arthritis (rheumatoid arthritis (RA), axial spondyloarthritis (axial SpA), psoriatic arthritis (PsA)) in Turkey. The required written permissions are obtained from the researchers who developed the questionnaire, for the language adaptation phase of the study. The language adaptation of the questionnaire to Turkish is done by following: translation, back-translation, expert opinion, and a pilot study in order. In the phase of examining the psychometric properties (validity and reliability) of the scale, 131 volunteer patients aged between 20-65 years, diagnosed with RA, axial SpA, PsA who were admitted to Başkent University Ankara Hospital, are included in the study. In order to test the validity in the first application, the patients were asked to fill out the patient evaluation form in which the sociodemographic and clinical characteristics of the patients are questioned, the Health Assessment Questionnaire (HAQ), the Fear-Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ), the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK) and the Short Form-36 (SF-36) at the same time as IFAB questionnaire which is adapted to Turkish via Google Forms. 35 randomly selected volunteers out of 131 subjects who participated in the study refilled the IFAB questionnaire for test-retest reliability two weeks after the first application. The internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) coefficient of the scale is found to be 0.804, and the item-total correlations of the scale items are ranged from 0.407 to 0.620. The test-retest reliability correlation coefficient is 0.703. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value is 0.729; the Bartlett Test of Sphericity is found to be statistically significant (p<0.001). The questionnaire formed a three-factor structural model as a result of explanatory factor analysis. These factors account for 65.17% of the total variance of the questionnaire. As a result of confirmatory factor analysis, it was determined that the model showed an acceptable fit (CMIN/DF: 2.095; IFI: 0.925; CFI: 0.921; RMSEA: 0.092). The negative correlation is found between the total score of the IFAB questionnaire and the HAQ score, and a positive correlation is found between all dimensions of the SF-36 scale except for emotional role difficulty (p<0.05). No statistically significant correlation was found between the total score of IFAB questionnaire and the scores of FABQ and TSK (p>0.05). In conclusion, IFAB questionnaire, which was developed to evaluate perceived barriers and facilitators of physical activity in patients with inflammatory arthritis, is a self-administered, practical, cost-free, valid and reliable scale for Turkish-speaking individuals with inflammatory arthritis. We believe that this questionnaire will guide health professionals in the planning and maintenance of holistic physical activity programs that support the factors that facilitate physical activity and improve the factors that hinder physical activity in Turkish-speaking patients with inflammatory arthritis.