Psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the falls risk perception scale among community-dwelling elderly

Effective fall prevention requires accurate risk perception assessment. There remains a paucity of validated measurement tool adapted to China’s cultural context. This cross-cultural validation study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of falls risk perception questionnaire (RPQ) among community-dwelling elderly. Using a standard translation-backward method, the original English version of RPQ was translated into Chinese (Mandarin). Between March 2023 and October 2023, a convenient sampling of 300 elderly individuals was recruited from one community in Quzhou, China to test internal consistency, split-half reliability, content validity, structure validity, and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) of this scale. A total of 272 patients (91.33%) completed questionnaires. The Chinese version of RPQ includes 16 items in total. Exploratory factor analysis extracted three factors, with a cumulative variance contribution rate of 63.32%. It achieved Cronbach’s alphas 0.874, McDonald’s omega coefficient 0.884 and the test-retest reliability 0.907, respectively, for the full scale. The scale-level content validity index was 0.875, and the item-level content validity index ranged from 0.833 to 1.000. Using the Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) as a benchmark, the correlation coefficient was 0.669. ROC analysis examined the correspondence between perceived risk and prior fall experience, with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.562 (95% CI 0.487–0.637). However, its accuracy in predicting actual fall risk is limited as it is primarily intended for assessing perceived risk. The Chinese version of RPQ demonstrated acceptable reliability and validity among community-dwelling elderly. It can be used to evaluate fall risk perception among this population. However, the scale should not be used to predict actual fall events, as ROC analysis indicated limited predictive accuracy.