Validity and Reliability of the Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Treatment Fatigue scale in a Persian-Speaking Aging Population

Introduction: Now a day, resulting from life style modification and alteration, fatigue, as a consequence, is not uncommon symptom. Diverse tools are available to measure fatigue status. One of which is Functional Assessment of Chronic Illness Treatment (FACIT) fatigue scale. The FACIT is one of the most widely used questionnaires for screening fatigue. The questionnaire has been translated and validated? Into 45 different languages, but there is not Persian version. The aim of the study was to test validity and reliability of Persian version of this scale amongst the elderly population of Yazd, a city in Iran. Methods: The scale was translated into Persian by using standard method of backward-forward. Then a prospective cross-sectional study was defined thereby 150 elderly people, who were selected by a classified cluster random sampling, filled in the Persian FACIT (P-FACIT) Content validity index, test- retest of 20 people and calculating Cronbach’s alpha by SPSS 20 were used to investigate content validity and reliability, respectively. Results: Content validity index of the Persian version was (0.96) and Cronbach’s alpha (0.891) approved its internal consistency. Also, intra-cluster correlation coefficient of questionnaire was upper than 0.7. Conclusion: The P-FACIT fatigue scale achieved acceptable validity and reliability to use as a scale for the elderly in Yazd. In addition, our result made the scale available as a tool for population-based study.