The Turkish Version of the Survey of Activities and Fear of Falling in the Elderly

The Reliability and Validity of the Turkish Version of the Survey of Activities and Fear of Falling in the Elderly

The Survey of Activities and Fear of Falling in the Elderly (SAFE) was originally developed in English to determine the level of fear of falling and its interactions with activities of daily living. The purpose of this study was to translate and cross-culturally adapt the SAFE instrument into Turkish and investigate its psychometric properties.

The Survey of Activities and Fear of Falling in the Elderly (SAFE) was originally developed in English to determine the level of fear of falling and its interactions with activities of daily living. The purpose of this study was to translate and cross-culturally adapt the SAFE instrument into Turkish and investigate its psychometric properties. One hundred eleven older adults (72 females) with a mean age of 69 years (SD=7.22; range=60-87) were included. For cross-cultural adaptation, two bi-lingual translators used the back-translation procedure. Within a 5-to-7-day period after the first assessment, the participants completed the Turkish version of SAFE (SAFE-T) to evaluate test-retest reliability. Cronbach's alpha (α) was used to assess internal consistency. The correlation with the Turkish version of the Falls Efficiency Scale-International (FES-T) was determined to check the validity.

Inclusion Criteria:

1. age over 60 years old
2. ability to read and write in Turkish
3. score ≥24 on the Mini-Mental State Exam
4. >3 according to the Functional Ambulation Category (FAC)
5. no pathology in visual ability and hearing

Exclusion Criteria:

1. neurologist-diagnosed dementia or Alzheimer's disease
2. ambulatory only with a wheelchair
3. amputated lower extremity