The Persian, Last 7-day, Long form of the International Physical Activity Questionnaire: Translation and Validation Study

PURPOSE To translate long form, interview-administered International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) from English to Persian and evaluate its validity, reliability and reproducibility. METHODS A forward-backward translation procedure was followed to develop the Persian version of the IPAQ. A total of 218 respondents (53.7% women, aged 22-76 yr) completed the Persian version in Tehran, Iran. To examine the test-retest reliability, 48 healthy volunteers completed the IPAQ twice during a 7-day period.. The PA indicators derived from the IPAQ were assessed for reliability and were compared with aerobic fitness and body mass index (BMI) for construct validity. RESULTS In general, the questionnaire was received well and all domains met the minimum reliability standards (intra-class correlation [ICC]>0.7), except for Leisure-time physical activity (PA). Aerobic fitness showed a weak positive correlation with all of the PA results derived from the IPAQ. A significant correlation was observed between the IPAQ data for total PA and both aerobic fitness (r=0.33, P<0.001) and BMI (r=0.26, P<0.001). Performing a known group comparison analysis, the results indicated that the questionnaire was discriminated well between the subgroups of the study samples expected to be different in their physical activity. CONCLUSIONS The Persian version of the long form, interview-administered IPAQ had an acceptable reliability and validity for assessing total PA in our Iranian sample of individuals. It may be a useful instrument for generating internationally comparable data on PA.