Validity and Reliability of Turkish Version of the Dyspnea-12 Scale

Aim: The aim of this study was to perform validity and reliability of Turkish version of the Dyspnea-12 Scale. Material and Methods: This methodological study was conducted with 60 COPD patients followed in a university hospital located in Ankara. “Patient Information Form” and “The Dyspnea-12 Scale” were used for data collection. The language, content and structure validity and the reliability stages were completed, respectively. Results: The mean age of the patients was 63.5±8.7 years, and the mean duration of COPD was 5.9±4.9 years. The big majority of the sample was composed of male (70.0%) and married (81.7%) patients. There was a consistency between the expert views on the items of the scale in the content variability analysis (CVR=1.00). As a result of exploratory factor analysis, the scale included two factor structures explaining 84.14% of the total variance, and the factor loadings ranged from 0.80 to 0.95. According to the confirmatory factor analysis, Chi-square/ df was 1.936, non-normed fit index was 0.89, and comparative fit index was 0.94. The internal consistency of the Cronbach’s alpha was 0.97. Conclusion: The Turkish version of the Dyspnea-12 Scale met validity and reliability criteria at an acceptable level, is an appropriate tool to assess of dyspnea in a subjective manner and can be applied in clinical trials.