Translation, Validation and Cross-Cultural Adaptation of a Simplified-Chinese Version of the Tegner Activity Score in Chinese Patients with Anterior Cruciate Ligament Injury

AIMS: To translate the English version of Tegner Activity Score into a Simplified-Chinese version (Tegner-C) and evaluate its psychometric properties. METHODS: Tegner-C was cross-culturally adapted according to established guidelines. The validity and reliability of Tegner-C were assessed in 78 participants, with 19–20 participants in each of the four groups: before anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (pre-ACLR) group, 2–3 months after ACLR group, 3–12 months after ACLR group, and healthy control group. Each participant was asked to complete the Tegner-C and Chinese version of International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee Form (IKDC-SKF-C) twice, with an interval of 5±2 days. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC(2, 1)) was used to assess the reliability and Spearman’s rank correlation was used for construct validity. RESULTS: The ICC(2,1) was higher than 0.90 for all groups except in the pre-ACLR group, for which the ICC(2,1) was 0.71 (0.41, 0.87) (All with p<0.001). The absolute reliability as evaluated by the smallest detectable change was 0.43, 2.12, 0.89, and 0.44 for the healthy control group, pre-ACLR group, 2–3 months after ACLR group, and 3–12 months after ACLR group, respectively. Neither a ceiling effect nor a floor effect was observed for any group. Significant difference was observed for both Tegner-C and IKDC-SKF-C scores between the control and the other three groups (all with p<0.001), and between pre-ACLR and the 2–3 months after ACLR group (p<0.001). CONCLUSIONS: Tegner-C demonstrated comparable psychometric properties to the original English version and thus is reliable and valid for Chinese-speaking patients with ACL injury.