Clinical Interventions in Aging (Jun 2014)
Cross-cultural adaptation and reliability testing of the Tilburg Frailty Indicator for optimizing care of Polish patients with frailty syndrome
Abstract
Izabella Uchmanowicz,1 Beata Jankowska-Polańska,1 Maria Łoboz-Rudnicka,2 Stanislaw Manulik,3 Krystyna Łoboz-Grudzień,1,2 Robbert JJ Gobbens4 1Department of Clinical Nursing, Wroclaw Medical University, 2Department of Cardiology, T Marciniak Memorial Hospital, 3Primary Care Practice, Wroclaw, Poland; 4Research and Development Center Innovations in Care, Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences, Rotterdam, the Netherlands Background: Frail older people are at high risk of developing adverse outcomes, such as disability, mortality, hospitalization, and institutionalization. Previous research suggests that the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring frailty. The aim of this study was to adapt and to test the reliability of the Polish version of the TFI. Method: A standard guideline was used for translation and cultural adaptation of the English version of the TFI into Polish. The study included 100 Polish patients (mean age 68.2±6.5 years), among them 42 men and 58 women. Cronbach’s alpha was used for analysis of the internal consistency of the TFI. Results: The mean total TFI score was 6.7±3.1. Forty patients scored ≥5, which corresponded to being frail. Cronbach’s alpha reliability coefficients of the instrument ranged from 0.68 to 0.72 and item-total correlation ranged from 0.12 to 0.52. Conclusion: The TFI is valid and reproducible for assessment of frailty syndrome among a Polish population. The Polish adaptation of the TFI proved a useful and fast tool for assessing frailty. Keywords: internal consistency, validity, older individuals, aging
