Translation and validation of the Chinese version of the Japan Frailty Scale

Dongping Wan; Rui Wang; Jie Wei; Qiang Zan; Lei Shang; Jianbing Ma; Shuxin Yao; Chao Xu

doi:10.3389/fmed.2023.1257223

Translation and validation of the Chinese version of the Japan Frailty Scale

Front Med (Lausanne). 2023 Sep 27:10:1257223. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2023.1257223. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Dongping Wan^{1

2}, Rui Wang², Jie Wei³, Qiang Zan², Lei Shang⁴, Jianbing Ma¹, Shuxin Yao¹, Chao Xu^{1

4}

Affiliations

¹ Department of Knee Joint Surgery, Honghui Hospital, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
² The First Clinical Medical College, Shaanxi University of Chinese Medicine, Xianyang, China.
³ State Key Laboratory of Cancer Biology, Department of Pathology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Air Force Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.
⁴ Department of Health Statistics, Faculty of Preventive Medicine, The Air Force Military Medical University, Xi'an, China.

Abstract

Purpose: Frailty is a difficult-to-measure condition that is susceptible to adverse outcomes. The Japan Frailty Scale (JFS) is a tool for assessing frailty status in older adults. This study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the JFS into a Chinese version (JFS-C).

Materials and methods: The study included 160 older adults as participants. Internal consistency was assessed using Cronbach's alpha, and test-retest reliability was conducted using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). Convergent validity was evaluated by assessing the correlation between JFS-C and the Barthel Index, the Frail scale, and the 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36). Criterion validity was assessed by comparing JFS-C scores with the Frail scale.

Results: JFS-C demonstrated adequate internal consistency (Cronbach's alphas = 0.711) and excellent test-retest reliability over a 7 to 10-day interval (ICC = 0.949). Correlation analysis showed a strong positive correlation between JFS-C and the Frail scale (r = 0.786, p < 0.001), a moderate negative correlation with the Barthel Index (r = -0.598, p < 0.001), and moderate correlations with various subscales of SF-36 (r = -0.574 to -0.661). However, no significant correlations were found between JFS-C and SF-36 mental health (r = -0.363, p < 0.001) or role emotional (r = -0.350, p < 0.001). Based on the reference standard of the Frail scale phenotype (score ≥ 2), the cutoff value for JFS-C was determined to be 3.

Conclusion: JFS-C demonstrates good reliability and validity in assessing frailty among the older population in China.

Keywords: Chinese version; culturally adaption; reliability; the Japan Frailty Scale; validity.