Translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and measurement properties of the Arabic version of the fear avoidance components scale.

Abstract

This study aimed to translate, validate, and cross-culturally adapt the original FACS into the Arabic language. The English version of the FACS was translated and culturally adapted into Arabic following international guidelines. The psychometric properties of the final version of the FACS-Arabic (FACS-A) were tested among 119 patients with different musculoskeletal (MSK) pain disorders. The Cronbach's α for the FACS-A was 0.86. The test-retest reliability, measured with intraclass correlation coefficient, was 0.80. The FACS-A showed positive significant correlations with other psychological patient-reported measures, including the pain catastrophizing scale (PCS) (<i>r</i> = 0.545); <i>p</i> ≤ 0.01), Brief Pain Inventory (BPI)-pain score (<i>r</i> = 0.546; <i>p</i> ≤ 0.01), BPI-pain interference score (<i>r</i> = 0.511; <i>p</i> ≤ 0.01), and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) (<i>r</i> = 0.451, 0.336, respectively; <i>p</i> ≤ 0.01). Confirmatory factor analysis of the FACS-A confirmed the two-factor structure found in the original English version. This study determined the FACS-A to be a reliable and valid tool for the assessment of the fear-avoidance beliefs in Arabic-speaking individuals with MSK pain disorders.