Adaptation and Validation of the Diabetic Foot Ulcer Scale-Short Form Scale for Chinese Diabetic Foot Ulcers Individuals

Background: The quality of life (QoL) of diabetic foot ulcer patients is worse than that of diabetic patients. The Diabetic Foot Ulcer Scale-Short Form (DFS-SF) is a readily available instrument used to evaluate the quality of life of diabetic foot ulcer individuals. The aim of this study was to translate the DFS-SF into Chinese, followed by an evaluation of its validity and reliability. Methods: This study was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, we followed the Brislin’s Translation and Back-translation model to translate the DFS-SF into Mandarin Chinese. In the second phase, we examined the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the DFS-SF, where the reliability was assessed in terms of Cronbach’s α coefficient, split-half reliability, and test-retest reliability, and validation of the scale was carried out through content validity, structure validity and criterion validity approaches. Results: A total of 208 participants were recruited for our study. The item-level content validity index (I-CVI) of the Chinese version of the Diabetic Foot Ulcer Scale varied from 0.800 to 1.000, the average scale-level content validity index (S-CVI/Ave) was 0.911, and the Cronbach’s α coefficient of the scale was 0.952. Confirmatory factor analysis indicated good structural validity of the scale, with a Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.920 and a root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) of 0.069 (p < 0.001). The criterion-related validity results indicated that the subscales were significantly related to the subscales of the 36-Item Short-Form Health Survey (SF-36), with coefficients ranging from 0.116 to 0.571 (p < 0.05). Discussion: The translation and the examination of the scale rigidly followed the golden standard model, and the reliability observed in our study was similar to that of other studies. Furthermore, the validity assessment indicated that the scale structure was reliable. Therefore, the proposed scales may serve as a reliable instrument for the quality of life evaluation in the diabetic foot ulcers population. Conclusion: The adaptation and validation of the Chinese version of the Diabetic Foot Ulcers Scale-Short Form were reliable, and it will be a reliable instrument to evaluate the QoL of Chinese diabetic foot ulcer patients.