Cross-cultural adaptation and reliability testing of the Tilburg frailty indicator for optimizing care of polish patients with frailty syndrome

Abstract

Background: Frail older people are at high risk of developing adverse outcomes, such as disability, mortality, hospitalization, and institutionalization. Previous research suggests that the Tilburg Frailty Indicator (TFI) is a valid and reliable instrument for measuring frailty. The aim of this study was to adapt and to test the reliability of the Polish version of the TFI. Method: A standard guideline was used for translation and cultural adaptation of the English version of the TFI into Polish. The study included 100 Polish patients (mean age 68.2±6.5 years), among them 42 men and 58 women. Cronbach's alpha was used for analysis of the internal consistency of the TFI. Results: The mean total TFI score was 6.7±3.1. Forty patients scored ≥ 5, which corresponded to being frail. Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficients of the instrument ranged from 0.68 to 0.72 and item-total correlation ranged from 0.12 to 0.52. Conclusion: The TFI is valid and reproducible for assessment of frailty syndrome among a Polish population. The Polish adaptation of the TFI proved a useful and fast tool for assessing frailty. © 2014 Uchmanowicz et al.