The Italian version of the Surgical Fear Questionnaire: validation of its measurement properties

Surgical fear is present in many patients awaiting surgery. However, a validated Italian version of the Surgical Fear Questionnaire (SFQ) was not available yet. Therefore, the aim of this study was to translate the SFQ into Italian and to test its reliability and validity.

Design: prospective cohort study on Italian-speaking Swiss patients scheduled for a minimally invasive spinal procedure or spinal surgery. After forward and back translation and a pilot test, reliability and validity of the 8-item SFQ was assessed using the intraclass correlation coefficient, (ICC), Cronbach's alpha, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and Spearman's correlation coefficient.

Results on 63 patients revealed median SFQ-total scores of 22 (minimum-maximum: 0-68) at inclusion and 22.5 (0-70) one week before surgery. Test-retest reliability between first and second SFQ-total score was high, ICC=0.947 (95% CI: 0.912-0.968). Internal consistency of the SFQ-total score at both assessment times were high, Cronbach's alphas 0.916 and 0.931 respectively. This was also the case for the subscale short-term fear, item 1-4 and long-term fear, item 5-8 (range 0.853-0.909). CFA-results for a one-factor and a two-factor model favored the two-factor model. Correlations with pain catastrophizing, other anxiety measures, and health status were weak and only state anxiety assessed by PROMIS reached statistical significance.

We conclude that the Italian version of the SFQ is suitable for use in practice and has a high reliability. Validity and sensitivity need additional testing on a larger population.