Mandarin Chinese Translation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Hospital for Special Surgery Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale (Chinese HSS Pedi-FABS)
Journal
Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine
Journal Volume
14
Journal Issue
3
ISSN
2325-9671
2325-9671
Date Issued
2026-03
Author(s)
Abstract
Background: The Hospital for Special Surgery Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale (HSS Pedi-FABS), consisting of 8 simple questions, is a useful tool for quantifying children's physical activity for research and clinical practice. Because of cultural diversity and variation in native languages across regions, translation and cross-cultural adaptation of patient-reported outcome measures is required.
Purpose: To translate, cross-culturally adapt, and validate a Chinese version of the HSS Pedi-FABS questionnaire.
Study design: Cohort study (diagnosis); Level of evidence, 2.
Methods: The HSS Pedi-FABS was translated into Chinese following a standardized 5-step forward-backward protocol, including translation, synthesis, back translation, expert review, and pretesting. Healthy children aged 10 to 18 years completed the Chinese HSS Pedi-FABS along with the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) or Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents (PAQ-A) for construct validation. Test-retest reliability was assessed over a 7- to 30-day interval, internal consistency was measured using Cronbach alpha, and construct validity was evaluated using Pearson correlation coefficients.
Results: A total of 184 children aged 10 to 18 years participated. The Chinese HSS Pedi-FABS demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach α = .93) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.98). Strong correlations were observed with PAQ-C (r = 0.85) in participants aged 10 to 12 and PAQ-A (r = 0.89) in those aged 13 to 18 years, supporting construct validity.
Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that the Chinese version of the HSS Pedi-FABS is a well-validated and reliable instrument for assessing physical activity among healthy Chinese-speaking children and adolescents. This work will assist future researchers in studying and developing physical activity-related outcome measures for Chinese-speaking children.
Subjects
HSS Pedi-FABS
adolescent
cross-cultural adaptation
pediatric
physical activity
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Type
journal article