Arabic Version of the Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport Scale: Validation and Cultural Adaptation

The Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS) is a validated and reliable scale to assess the psychological readiness of athletes returning to sport after an injury and it has been translated and validated in several languages.

To translate the I-PRRS scale into Arabic (I-PRRS-Ar) and evaluate its psychometric properties in Arabic-speaking athletes.

An observational, cross-sectional study was conducted among Arabic-speaking injured athletes recruited from various sports clinics and sport clubs across Saudi Arabia. Psychometric properties examined included internal consistency, test-retest reliability, content validity, convergent validity with the Arabic Tampa Scale for Kinesiophobia (TSK-Ar) and the Arabic Numerical Pain Rating Scale (NPRS-Ar), and structural validity.

A total of 140 athletes completed the I-PRRS-Ar, while 34 athletes completed the scale twice to assess the test-retest reliability. The I-PRRS-Ar demonstrated excellent content validity (CVI ≥0.90), good internal consistency (Cronbach's α =0.85), and excellent test-retest reliability (ICC_2,1 = 0.83). Standard error of measurement was 3.83, and minimal detectable change was 10.64. No floor or ceiling effects were found. I-PRRS-Ar showed weak negative correlation with TSK-Ar (r = -0.28, P = 0.001) and moderate negative correlation with NPRS-Ar (r = -0.32, P < 0.001). Factor analysis confirmed a unidimensional structure.

The Arabic version of the Injury-Psychological Readiness to Return to Sport (I-PRRS-Ar) is a reliable and valid tool for assessing psychological readiness to return to sport in Arabic-speaking athletes after an injury.