The aim of this article is to evaluate the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the Breathlessness Beliefs Questionnaire (BBQ) for use among patients with respiratory diseases in China. The BBQ is an instrument for assessing specific dyspnoea-related fears and may have predictive value for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease outcomes beyond general anxiety measures. This instrument has not previously been translated into Chinese or tested in mainland China. This was a cross-sectional validation study with a 1-week test of reproducibility. A total of 252 Chinese patients with respiratory diseases recruited from pulmonary outpatient and inpatient departments completed the BBQ. Demographic characteristics, pulmonary function and degree of dyspnoea were also measured. Cronbach's α was 0.82 for the total BBQ score; 0.72 for the somatic focus subscale and 0.73 for the activity avoidance subscale. Test-retest reliability was satisfactory, with intraclass correlation coefficient scores for the BBQ overall and for each subscale ranging from 0.96 to 0.98 ( p < 0.001). After exploratory factor analyses, the Chinese version of the BBQ was found to be similar to the original Dutch version. The Chinese version of the BBQ is a reliable tool to assess dyspnoea-related fear in patients with respiratory diseases in mainland China.
Keywords: Dyspnoea; anxiety; beliefs; breathlessness; respiratory diseases.