[The assessment of fear of falling with the Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I). Development and psychometric properties in Dutch elderly].
Fear of falling is common in older persons. Different methods have been developed to assess fear of falling. The most well-know measure is the 10-item Falls Efficacy Scale (FES). However, the FES items (a) focus on low functioning older persons and particularly on in-home activities, (b) do not comprise social activities, and (c) were developed from a US perspective so that translation in European languages is hampered. To solve these issues, the 16-item Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) was recently developed within the Prevention of Falls Network Europe (ProFaNE). In this article, the Dutch version of the FES-I is presented and the psychometric properties in 213 Dutch persons aged 70 years of age and over are described. The FES-I showed to be unidimensional and internally consistent; the Cronbach alpha coefficient was 0.96. The 4 week test-retest intra-class correlation coefficient was 0.82. The associations of the FES-I sumscores with age, gender, falls history and overall fear of falling was as expected, indicating construct validity. In addition, the FES-I discriminated in the same extent as the original 10-item FES scale. We conclude that the FES-I showed acceptable reliability and construct validity and may be useful in cross-national research. Future studies should focus on the sensitivity to change of FES-I.
Kempen
G I J M
GI
Care and Public Health Research Institute (CAPHRI), Faculty of Health, Medicine and Life Sciences, Universiteit Maastricht. g.kempen@zw.unimaas.nl
Zijlstra
G A R
GA
van Haastregt
J C M
JC
D000058:Accidental Falls; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D005852:Geriatric Psychiatry / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*