Background: The 39-item ROwan Foot Pain Assessment Questionnaire (ROFPAQ) has affective, cognitive, and sensory dimensions to evaluate chronic foot pain. However, to date, the ROFPAQ has only been validated in English and Spanish versions. A simplified Chinese version of ROFPAQ is still not available, even though China has a large population of patients with foot pain.
Objective: This study's aim was to translate the ROFPAQ into a Chinese version and assess its reliability and validity in Chinese patients with chronic foot pain.
Study design: A cross-sectional, multicenter descriptive study.
Setting: This study took place at the Chinese PLA General Hospital, PLA Strategic Support Force Characteristic Medical Center and Wenzhou integrated traditional Chinese and Western Medicine Hospital Affiliated to Zhejiang traditional Chinese Medicine University.
Methods: The ROFPAQ-C (Chinese) was developed by a forward/backward translation protocol and cross-cultural adaptation from the United Kingdom to China, and from English to Chinese Putonghua. A total of 194 patients from 3 centers with chronic foot pain were recruited for test-retest measures from July 2020 though September 2021.
Results: Adequate internal consistencies (Cronbach's Alpha) in 3 domains ranged from 0.875 to 0.799 for the cognitive, from 0.795 to 0.629 for the affective, and from 0.801 to 0.811 for the sensory, as well as for the total score from 0.880 to 0.815. Adequate test-retest reliability by intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were shown in the cognitive 0.712 (95% CI 0.636 to 0.775), the affective 0.929 (95% CI 0.906 to 0.946), the sensory 0.753 (95% CI 0.685 to 0.808), and the total score 0.932 (95% CI 0.910 to 0.948). Adequate item-total correlations were shown for the cognitive from 0.848 to 0.825, the affective from 0.918 to 0.908, and the sensory from 0.943 to 0.855.
Limitations: The original ROFPAQ with 39 items was developed from a podiatry department of the health care national service of the United Kingdom.
Conclusions: The ROFPAQ-C can be used as a valid and reliable tool for chronic foot pain in the Chinese population.
Keywords: ROFPAQ; health impact assessment; validation studies; Chronic pain foot.