Comparison of Psychometric Properties of the Original and Brief Version of the Tampa Scale For Kinesiophobia

Introduction: some accurate tools exist to assess fear-avoidance behavior, such as the tampa scale for kinesiophobia (tsk) in individuals with musculoskeletal problems. the current research aims to compare the psychometric characteristics of the original 17-items tsk questionnaire and its 11-item brief version in chronic non-specific low-back pain (cnslbp). materials and methods: in this test development study, 295 patients with cnslbp referred to the physiotherapy clinic of milad hospital in tehran city, iran were evaluated. confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) and α cronbach was conducted to assess the validity and reliability of the original and brief version of the tsk, respectively. for goodness-of-fit, the χ² /df, root mean square error of approximation (rmsea), goodness-of-fit index (gfi), and comparative fit index (cfi) indices were used. results: internal consistency specified by cronbach’s α was 0.949 for the original version of the questionnaire and 0.927 for the brief one. based on the cfa findings, the goodness-of-fit indices for the brief version were gfi=0.921, rmsea=0.078 (90% confidence interval (ci), 0.062%-0.094%), comparative fit index (cfi)=0.981, and χ² /df=2.791. these indices for the original one were 0.882, 0.066 (90% ci, 0.055%-0.076%), 0.983, and 2.270, respectively. a significant correlation was found between these two versions (p<0.001). these findings confirm the adequacy of the brief version of the tsk. conclusion: the brief version of tsk can be considered a reliable and valid tool to evaluate somatic focus and activity avoidance in patients with cnslbp.