Cross-cultural adaptation, reliability and validity of the Turkish version of the modified Gait Efficacy Scale in community-dwelling older adults

Background There are no published studies on the cross-cultural adaptation of the modified Gait Efficacy Scale (mGES) to Turkish and investigated its reliability and validity. Purpose The aim of the study was to cross-culturally adapt the mGES to Turkish (T-mGES) and to prove its psychometric properties in community-dwelling older adults. Methods International translation strategies and cultural adaptation procedures were used. A total of 103 community-dwelling older adults (73 women, 30 men) have participated in psychometric property analysis. Participants were assessed using the T-mGES, Activity Specific Balance Confidence Scale (ABC) and the Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I). T-mGES was recompleted one week later. Results The mean age of the individuals was 67.8 +/- 4.8 years. The T-mGES had strong test-retest reliability (ICC: 0.835, CI 95%: 0.72-0.90). The T-mGES' overall score had strong internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha: 0.961). The SEM95 and MDC95 values for the total score were 6.62 and 18.34, respectively. T-mGES had a strong relationship with ABC and FES-I (r(1): 0.899, r(2): -0.707, p < .01), indicating a high (r > 0.50) construct validity. On the other hand, factor analysis results proved a one-dimensioned structure of the T-mGES. Conclusion T-mGES is a reliable and valid questionnaire for assessing gait efficacy in Turkish speaking community-dwelling older adults. T-mGES provides a straightforward measure due to its unidimensional form.