Simplified Chinese version of the Forgotten Joint Score (FJS) for patients who underwent joint arthroplasty: cross-cultural adaptation and validation

BACKGROUND: The Forgotten Joint Score (FJS) is a newly developed health-related quality of life (HRQoL) questionnaire designed to evaluate the awareness after total knee arthroplasty (TKA). This study cross-culturally adapted and psychometrically validated a simplified Chinese version of the FJS (SC-FJS). METHODS: Cross-cultural adaptation was performed according to the internationally recognized guidelines. One-hundred and fifty participants who underwent primary TKA were recruited in this study. Cronbach’s α and intra-class correlations were used to determine reliability. Construct validity was analyzed by evaluating the correlations between SC-FJS and the Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) and the short form (36) health survey (SF-36). RESULTS: Each of the 12 items was properly responded and correlated with the total items. SC-FJS had excellent reliability [Cronbach’s α = 0.907, intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) = 0.970, 95% CI 0.959–0.978). Elimination of any one item in all did not result in a value of Cronbach’s α of <0.80. SC-FJS had a high correlation with symptoms (0.67, p < 0.001) and pain (0.60, p < 0.001) domains of KOOS and social functioning (0.66, p < 0.001) domain of SF-36, and it also moderately correlated with function in daily living (0.53, p < 0.001) and function in sport and recreation (0.40, p < 0.001) domains of KOOS, and physical subscale of SF-36 (0.49–0.53, p < 0.001) but had a low (r = 0.20) or not significant (p > 0.05) correlation with mental subscale of SF-36. CONCLUSIONS: SC-FJS demonstrated excellent acceptability, internal consistency, reliability, and construct validity, which can be recommended for patients who underwent joint arthroplasty in Mainland China. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s13018-016-0508-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.