Cultural adaptation, validation of Hindi Version of Fat Phobia Scale- Short Form (FPS-SF) involving morbidly obese individuals seeking treatment from the Metabolic Surgery Clinic in a tertiary care center of North India

BACKGROUND: The Fat Phobia Scale- Short Form (FPS-SF) is widely used to measure negative attitudes towards obese individuals. AIM: To translate, adapt and validate FPS-SF in Hindi. METHODS: World Health Organization (WHO) process of cultural adaptation of a tool was adopted. Hindi translation of EDDS was done by three psychiatrists, two of whom were familiar with western culture, their mother tongue being Hindi. The expert team was bilingual, including three surgeons, one Professor in the English language, one morbidly-obese person, and a psychiatrist with the past experience of cultural adaptation of tools, resolved inconsistencies in translations. Back translation to the English language was done by an independent translator. Morbidly-obese patients (n=55) seeking treatment from Metabolic Surgery Clinic at Lok Nayak Hospital, New Delhi were involved in pre-testing/focused-group-discussion/cognitive-interviewing. Hindi-version so-developed was administered on undergraduate students (n=120) twice, separated by a week. Test-retest reliability was assessed. The Hindi-Fat Phobia Scale-Short Form (FPS-SF), original EDDS, and Modified Weight Bias Internalization Scale (WBIS-M), were applied on 175 participants [students (n=120), patients (n=55)]. Psychometric properties were analyzed. RESULTS: The mean age and Body-Mass Index (BMI) of students and patients were 18.60 and 43.38 years; and 21.77 and 43.21Kg/m(2), respectively. The sample size according to the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was adequate for exploratory factor analysis (KMO-test=0.708 and χ2=1470.52;p=0.000). Internal consistency, Guttman split-half-reliability, λ-2=0.838. Intra-class correlation coefficient 0.799(95%CI=0.753-0.840)(p-value=0.000). Cross-language concordance had significant intra-class correlation coefficient (0.877-0.986)(p-value=0.000). CONCLUSION: The Hindi-FPS-SF has good psychometric properties and may be used for epidemiological purposes in India.