The Persian Version of the Fear of Cancer Recurrence Inventory (FCRI): Translation and Evaluation of ItsPsychometric Properties

Background: This study aimed to translate and validate the Fear of CancerRecurrence Inventory (FCRI) questionnaire into Persian and to investigate itspsychometric properties.Methods: The FCRI was translated to Persian using a linguistic methodologyaccording to WHO guidelines. A total of ۴۵۰ breast cancer survivors who had thefollowing inclusion criteria were included: time elapse of more than six monthsafter the treatment prior to the study; absence of objective markers of recurrence,fluency in the Persian language, and signing the informed consent. Internalconsistency was estimated with Cronbach's α coefficient and test-retest reliabilitywith Interclass correlation. Concurrent validity was estimated through Pearson’scorrelation between the FCRI and Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale(HADS). Principal component analysis (PCA) and confirmatory factor analysis(CFA) were employed to evaluate dimensionality.Results: The Persian version was acceptable for patients. The content validityindex (CVI) was ۰.۸۰. The instrument had good test-retest reliability (ICC= ۰.۹۶)and internal consistency (Cronbach’s α=۰.۸۶). PCA and CFA indicated that thefactor structure of the Persian version was similar to the original questionnaire andhad acceptable goodness of fit. Correlations between the FCRI and HADS wasremarkable (r= ۰.۲۵۲ – ۰.۶۳۹), indicating acceptable concurrent validity.Conclusions: The Persian version of FCRI could be considered a good crossculturalequivalent for the original English version. The questionnaire was areliable and valid instrument in terms of internal consistency, test-retest reliability,and dimensionality.

Keywords:

Breast Cancer , linguistic validation , fear of cancer recurrence inventory , Persian , psychometric properties