ABSTRACT
Introduction:
Physical activity is an important parameter to be quantified in the elderly. Reliable measurement instruments are needed to evaluate, and design effective therapeutic intervention targets and to monitor patient outcomes.
Objective:
To adapt cross-culturally and determine the test-retest and inter-rater reliability of the Active Australia Questionnaire in community elders.
Methods:
A cross-cultural adaptation was performed according to the criteria proposed by Guillemin and Beaton, namely, translation, back-translation, synthesis of translations, submission to the expert committee and implementation of the pre-final version to test the questionnaire. For test-retest reliability, a four-hour interval was given for collection, and a six-hour interval for inter-rater analysis, following the retest. Physical activity information was considered in the last seven days. The characterization of the sample was done by descriptive analysis. For the analysis of reliability we used the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The study included 22 elderly (72.5 ± 5.3 years) and 7.6 ± 3.9 years of education.
Results:
Test-retest reliability was ICC = 0.97 and the inter-rater reliability was ICC= 0.82.
Conclusion:
The instrument was semantically and linguistically adequate and reliable to evaluate the level of physical activity in the elderly in the community.
Keywords:
motor activity; self report; classification; cultural characteristics.