Background: Occupational balance (OB) is a desirable outcome of rehabilitation because it is related to various health indices. The Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ) is a self-report measure of occupational balance.
Aims/objectives: To examine the test-retest reliability, participant-level content validity, construct validity, internal consistency, and convergent validity of an Arabic occupational balance questionnaire (OBQ11-A).
Materials and methods: A total of 103 participants were recruited through convenience sampling. Test-retest reliability was examined using intraclass correlation coefficients, participant-level content validity using percentage of agreement in survey questions, construct validity using factor analysis, internal consistency using Cronbach's alpha, and convergent validity by examining associations with quality-of-life.
Results: Intraclass Correlation Coefficient values for the total OBQ11-A scores and individual items were greater than 0.7 between the test and retest. The majority of respondents endorsed the relevance, comprehensiveness, and comprehensibility of the OBQ11-A. Cronbach's alpha for the OBQ11-A total score was 0.899. Nine of the 11 OBQ11-A items had factor loadings greater than 0.7. Moderate associations were found between the total OBQ11-A scores and physical health (n = 101; ρ = .52, p < .001), psychological health (n = 101; ρ = .49, p < .001), social relationships (n = 101; ρ = .36, p < .001), and environmental domains (n = 101; ρ = .57, p < .001) of the quality-of-life measure.
Conclusions: OBQ11-A demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties for research purposes.
Keywords: Arabic; occupational balance; rehabilitation; reliability; validity.
Occupational balance, referring to an individual’s self-perception of having the right amount and variety of occupations in his/her occupational pattern, is associated with various health indicators and could serve as an additional outcome of rehabilitation.The Arabic version of the Occupational Balance Questionnaire (OBQ11-A) was found to have acceptable validity and reliability for use among Arabic-speaking populations.