Fear of movement/(Re)injury in low back pain: confirmatory validation of a German version of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia

BACKGROUND: The Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK), an instrument for measuring fear of movement/(re)injury, has been confirmed as an important predictor for the persistence of pain-related disability. The aims of this study were to evaluate the psychometric properties of a German version of the TSK (TSK-GV), examining aspects of content validity with special focus on fear-avoidance and endurance, and to confirm criterion-related validity in patients with low back pain (LBP). METHODS: A total of 191 patients with LBP were included in this study. Several models with different factor structures from published studies were compared in a confirmatory factor analysis. Internal consistencies of the TSK-GV and its subscales were examined, and correlations with related self-report measures were calculated. RESULTS: The internal consistency of the TSK-GV was α = 0.73. A two-factor model with 11 items was found to be the best fit for our data. The two factors were labelled Somatic Focus (SF) and Activity Avoidance (AA). The total score, SF and AA revealed moderate to high correlations with other fear-avoidance variables. CONCLUSIONS: The TSK-GV is a reliable and valid measure for assessing the fear of movement/(re)injury. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/1471-2474-15-280) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.