Cross-cultural Adaption And Psychometric Testing Of The Chinese Version Of Duke Activity Status Index In Patients With Cardiovascular Diseases

Objective: To translate and adapt cross-culturally the Duke Activity Status Index(DASI) for the Chinese language, and to verify its psychometric properties in the assessment of functional capacity of patients with cardiovascular disease(CVD). To offer evidence for evaluating cardiac rehabilitation patients’ physical activities status by using DASI as an alternative method.Methods: The DASI was translated into Chinese, then checked by back-translation into English and evaluated by an expert committee. The pre-test version was first evaluated in 30 subjects. The psychometric properties and correlation with exercise testing was performed in a second group of 67 subjects. An exploratory factor analyses was performed in the subjects to verify the construct validity of the DASI.Results: The intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.980 and for the inter-observer reliability was 0.969. Cronbach’s α for internal consistency was 0.763, 0.762 and 0.764 respectively. The criterion validity was verified by significant positive correlations of DASI scores with the peak oxygen uptake(VO2peak)(r = 0.739, P < 0.01). The factor analysis yielded two factors, which explained 61.279% of the total variance.Conclusions: The Chinese version of DASI appears to be a valid, reliable, fast and easy to administer tool to assess functional capacity among patients with CVD. It could be used as an opportunity of evaluating the physical activities in cardiac rehabilitation patients as well as in community health service.