Validation of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia for Temporomandibular Disorders (TSK-TMD) in patients with painful TMD

BACKGROUND: The aim of the study was to validation of the Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia for Temporomandibular Disorders (TSK-TMD) for use in patients with painful TMD. METHODS: The original TSK-TMD was translated and cross-culturally adaptated following international guidelines. A total of 160 patients with temporomandibular disorders (TMD) were enrolled to fill out the scale. The internal consistency and test-retest methods were used to evaluate the reliability of the TSK-TMD. The validity of the TSK-TMD was analyzed by content validity, construct validity and convergent validity. Construct validity was assessed based on exploratory factor analysis (EFA), and convergent validity by examining the correlation between the global rating of oral health question and TSK-TMD scores. RESULTS: Cronbach’s alpha value for the total TSK-TMD score was 0.919 and the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) value for the TSK-TMD was 0.797. Construct validity was assessed by EFA, extracting two factors, accounting for 71.9% of the variance. The factor loadings of all items were higher than 0.40. In terms of convergent validity, the TSK-TMD subscales showed good correlations to the global rating of oral health question. CONCLUSION: These findings show that the Chinese version of TSK-TMD has satisfactory psychometric properties and is appropriate for use in patients with painful TMD in China.