Translation and validation of the inflammatory bowel disease fatigue (IBD-F) patient self-assessment questionnaire

INTRODUCTION: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a group of chronic gastrointestinal diseases with frequent systemic complications that are incurable according to current knowledge. These diseases adversely affect various areas of life, lowering patients’ quality of life. One of the most frequently reported symptoms is fatigue. AIM: Translation and validation of the IBD-F patient self-assessment scale with a Polish IBD population. MATERIAL AND METHODS: After consent from the author of the questionnaire had been obtained, the questionnaire was translated using the forward- and back-translation method. After arriving at the final Polish version of the questionnaire and ensuring that the questions and statements were comprehensible, the questionnaire was validated with a group of 129 IBD patients. RESULTS: High values of intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) were achieved for overall results in both parts of the IBD-F questionnaire between test and retest (values exceeding 0.75). A high Cronbach’s α consistency coefficient was achieved for the entire IBD-F questionnaire, both in the test and in the retest (0.968 and 0.975, respectively). Broken down into parts, Cronbach’s α coefficient for Section I (presence and severity of fatigue) of the IBD-F questionnaire was 0.883, and for Section II (impact of fatigue on the person’s life) it was 0.966. All patients evaluating the Polish version of the IBD-F questionnaire deemed the content of the questions comprehensible. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis of the results obtained, the Polish version of the IBD-F questionnaire was considered valid, reliable, and clinically useful.