Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illness, and Loss for elder inpatients

Objective To translate the English version of Fatigue, Resistance, Ambulation, Illness, and Loss (FRAIL) for elder patients into Chinese, and to test the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of FRAIL. Methods After obtaining authorization from the developer, the FRAIL was translated and culturally adapted into Chinese version. The reliability and validity of the Chinese version of FRAIL were tested in 179 patients. Results The Cronbach α coefficient was 0.826. The test-retest reliability was 0.828. Two nurses used the scale to evaluate the consistency of the results and the Kappa coefficient was 0.892. The content validity index of the I-CVI ranged from 0.93 to 1.00, and the S-CVI/Ave index was 0.98. The correlations coefficients between each dimension score and the total score ranged from 0.637 to 0.865(P<0.01). and the correlations coefficients between each dimension score ranged from 0.277 to 0.817(P<0.01, P<0.05), The KMO index of factor analysis was 0.766. Five factors were extracted from exploratory factor analysis, and the cumulative variance contribution rate was 77.572%. The load value of each item on the corresponding factor was 0.560 to 0.889. Conclusions The Chinese version of FRAIL has been proved to have good reliability and validity. It can be used to assess elderly patients risk of frailty in the Chinese settings. Key words: Frailty; Elder; Screening tools; Reliability; Validity