Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the body image disturbance questionnaire in patients with breast cancer-related lymphedema

Objective To explore the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the body image disturbance questionnaire(BIDQ) in patients with breast cancer-related lymphedema (BCRL). Methods BCRL patients who visited the lymphedema clinic of Jiangsu Cancer Hospital from January 2021 to December 2022 were selected as the research subjects by convenience sampling method, and the Chinese version of the BIDQ was used for questionnaire surveys to evaluate the reliability and validity of the scale. Results A total of 90 patients with BCRL were included, and 86 had valid questionnaires, with an effective recovery rate of 95.56%. The Chinese version of the BIDQ included 7 items, with the item level content validity index (I-CVI) of the scale values ranging from 0.84 to 1.00 and the scale level content validity index (S-CVI) value of 0.938. The Cronbachs α coefficient of the Chinese version of the BIDQ scale was 0.846 (P＜0.01), with Cronbachs α coefficients for individual items ranging from 0.724 to 0.861, and the odd-even split coefficient of the total scale was 0.877. Principal component analysis and maximum variance method were used for orthogonal rotation testing of the included data, extracting 2 factors with eigenvalues of 3.434 and 1.341, contributing rates of 48.173% and 17.469%, respectively, and a cumulative contribution rate reaching 65.642%. The factor loadings of each item were all ＞0.500. In terms of retest reliability, the second questionnaire survey was conducted two weeks after the end of the first questionnaire, and the results showed that there was no significant difference between the first and second guestionnaries in the total score of the scale and the scores of each item (P＞0.05). Conclusion The Chinese version of the BIDQ scale demonstrates high reliability and validity, and can be used for the assessment of body image in patients with BCRL.