Mandarin Chinese Translation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Hospital for Special Surgery Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale (Chinese HSS Pedi-FABS). Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • BACKGROUND: The Hospital for Special Surgery Pediatric Functional Activity Brief Scale (HSS Pedi-FABS), consisting of 8 simple questions, is a useful tool for quantifying children's physical activity for research and clinical practice. Because of cultural diversity and variation in native languages across regions, translation and cross-cultural adaptation of patient-reported outcome measures is required. PURPOSE: To translate, cross-culturally adapt, and validate a Chinese version of the HSS Pedi-FABS questionnaire. STUDY DESIGN: Cohort study (diagnosis); Level of evidence, 2. METHODS: The HSS Pedi-FABS was translated into Chinese following a standardized 5-step forward-backward protocol, including translation, synthesis, back translation, expert review, and pretesting. Healthy children aged 10 to 18 years completed the Chinese HSS Pedi-FABS along with the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) or Physical Activity Questionnaire for Adolescents (PAQ-A) for construct validation. Test-retest reliability was assessed over a 7- to 30-day interval, internal consistency was measured using Cronbach alpha, and construct validity was evaluated using Pearson correlation coefficients. RESULTS: A total of 184 children aged 10 to 18 years participated. The Chinese HSS Pedi-FABS demonstrated excellent internal consistency (Cronbach α = .93) and test-retest reliability (ICC = 0.98). Strong correlations were observed with PAQ-C (r = 0.85) in participants aged 10 to 12 and PAQ-A (r = 0.89) in those aged 13 to 18 years, supporting construct validity. CONCLUSION: Our study demonstrated that the Chinese version of the HSS Pedi-FABS is a well-validated and reliable instrument for assessing physical activity among healthy Chinese-speaking children and adolescents. This work will assist future researchers in studying and developing physical activity-related outcome measures for Chinese-speaking children.

publication date

  • March 18, 2026

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC13009762

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 105033226628

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1177/23259671251408800

PubMed ID

  • 41884688

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 14

issue

  • 3