College of Public Health and Human Sciences

Background

The Identification of Functional Ankle Instability (IdFAI) is a valid and reliable tool to identify chronic ankle instability; however, it was developed in English, thus limiting its usage only to those who can read and write in English. The objectives of our study were to (1) cross-culturally adapt a Chinese (Mandarin) version of the IdFAI and (2) determine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version IdFAI.

Methods

The cross-cultural adaptation procedures used by the investigators and translators followed previously published guidelines and included 6 stages: (1) initial translation, (2) synthesis of the translations, (3) back translation, (4) developing the pre-final version for field testing, (5) testing the pre-final version, and (6) finalizing the Chinese IdFAI (IdFAI-C). Five psychometric properties of the IdFAI-C were assessed from results of 2 participant groups: bilingual (n = 20) and Chinese (n = 625).

Results

A high degree of agreement was found between the English IdFAI and IdFAI-C (ICC_2,1 = 0.995). An excellent internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.89), test–retest reliability (ICC_2,1 = 0.970), and construct validity (r(625) = 0.67) was also found for the IdFAI-C. In addition, the results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis indicated that ankle instability was the only construct measured from the IdFAI.

Conclusion

The IdFAI-C is a highly reliable and valid self-report questionnaire that can be used to assess ankle instability. Therefore, we suggest that it can be used to effectively and accurately assess chronic ankle instability in clinical settings for Chinese-speaking individuals.