Translation, Cultural Adaptation, and Reliability and Validity Testing of a Chinese Version of the Freezing of Gait Questionnaire (FOGQ-CH)

Freezing of gait is a disabling symptom with a complex episodic nature that is frequently experienced by people with Parkinson's disease (PD). Although China has the largest population with PD in the world, no Chinese version of the freezing of gait questionnaire (FOGQ), the instrument that has been most widely used to assess FOG, has yet been developed. This study aimed to translate and adapt the original version of FOGQ to create a Chinese version, the FOGQ-CH, then assess its reliability, calculate the Minimal Detectable Change (MDC) and investigate its validity. The forward-backwards translation model was adopted, and cultural adaptation included expert review and pretesting. For the reliability study, 31 Chinese native speaking patients with PD were assessed two times in a 7–10 days interval. Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the FOGQ-CH were measured by Cronbach's alpha (Cα) and the Intraclass Correlation Coefficient (ICC). For the validity study, 34 native speakers of Chinese with PD were included. To explore the convergent validity, relationships between the FOGQ-CH and the Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale Part II (UPDRS II) and Part III (UPDRS III), Timed Up and Go Test (TUGT), Timed Up and Go Test in cognitive task (TUGT-Cog), walking speed (10 MWT speed), and step length (10 MWT step length) in a 10-m Walk Test were tested. To explore predictive validity, the number of falls followed up for 6 months were assessed. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) was employed to test the capacity of FOGQ-CH to discriminate those with falls. From the reliability study, Cα = 0.823, ICC = 0.786. The MDC_0.90 = 4.538. From the validity study, the FOGQ-CH showed moderate correlations with UPDRS II (rho = 0.560, p = 0.001), UPDRS III (rho = 0.451, p = 0.007), TUGT (rho = 0.556, p = 0.007), TUGT-Cog (rho = 0.557, p = 0.001), 10MWT-speed (rho = −0.478, p = 0.004), 10MWT-step length (rho = −0.419, p = 0.014), and the number of falls followed up for 6 months (rho = 0.356, p = 0.045). The AUC = 0.777 (p = 0.036) for predicting whether the participants will have multiple falls (two or more) in the following 6 months. The FOGQ-CH showed good reliability and validity for assessing Chinese native speaking patients with PD. In addition, the FOGQ-CH showed good efficacy for predicting multiple falls in the following 6 months.