Validity and reliability study of the Turkish laval questionnaire in obese individuals

The aim of this study was to evaluate the Turkish validity and reliability of the Laval Questionnaire developed for obese individuals. The Laval Questionnaire, consisting of 6 parts and a total of 44 items, is a scale developed to evaluate the quality of life of obese individuals. A total of 235 individuals with Body Mass Index ≥ 30 kg/m2 and who met the inclusion/exclusion criteria, referred from Bayraklı District Health Directorate No. 1 Healthy Life Center and Gaziemir Municipality, were included in the study. The mean age was 49.11 ± 13.1 years. In addition to the Laval Questionnaire, the SF-12 general health quality of life questionnaire and the Obese-Specific Quality of Life Scale developed specifically for obese individuals were used. For the adaptation of the Turkish version of the questionnaire, first of all, language validity was ensured by the forward and backward translation method. SPSS 26 (Statistical Program in Social Sciences) program was used for explanatory factor analysis, reliability analysis and test-retest analysis, and AMOS 24 package program was used for confirmatory factor analysis. The level of significance in the applied analyzes was accepted as 0.05. For explanatory factor analysis, the Kaiser-Meyer-Olikin coefficient was calculated as 0.916. The percentage of explanation of the total variance of the scale was calculated as 57.003%. A CMIN/df value of 2.283 indicates that the scale model is statistically significant, and a (CMIN/df<5) RMSEA value of 0.61 indicates that the sample size is sufficient for the established scale model (RMESA<0.80). IFI, NFI, CFI and GFI values were calculated as 0.940, 0.903, 0.939 and 0.907, respectively. The Cronbach's alpha value, which is an indicator of the internal consistency coefficient of the Laval Questionnaire in obese individuals, was calculated as 0.952. While the minimum score to be obtained from the 9-item scale is 44, the maximum score is 308, and there is no cut-off point in the scale. Obese-Specific Quality of Life and SF-12 Quality of Life scale scores were found to have a statistically significant effect on the Laval Questionnaire score (p1<0.05). 58% of the Laval Questionnaire score is explained by the Obese-Specific Quality of Life and SF-12 Quality of Life scale scores. As a result, it was determined that the Laval Questionnaire is a valid and reliable questionnaire to measure the quality of life of obese individuals in the Turkish population.