Psychometric testing of the abdominal surgery impact scale in the Turkish population

Postsurgery recovery is a multifaceted and dynamic process. Recent reports recommend using condition-specific patient-reported outcome measures to evaluate surgical recovery. This study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Abdominal Surgery Impact Scale (ASIS) in the Turkish population.

This methodological study included 181 patients who primarily underwent minor or intermediate abdominal procedures. The scale was applied twice: in the early postoperative period and one month postoperatively. Content validity, construct validity, item analysis, internal consistency, and responsiveness were evaluated.

Most participants underwent hernia surgery (44.2%) or cholecystectomy (41.4%); only 7.7% had major surgery. Responsiveness analysis showed that mean total ASIS-TR scores increased significantly (p < 0.001) from the early postoperative period (77.71 ± 23.60) to one month postoperatively (116.08 ± 14.50). The ceiling effect of the one-month postoperative scale was 40.3%. Item-total correlations ranged from 0.33 to 0.75. Internal consistency was high (McDonald's ω = 0.91, Cronbach's α = 0.91), with domain ω values ranging from 0.51 for Visceral Function to 0.94 for Psychological Function. The fit indices at the two time points supported construct validity. Early fit index values were as follows: χ²/df = 2.08, RMSEA = 0.07, CFI = 0.93, IFI = 0.93, TLI = 0.91, GFI = 0.87.

The ASIS-TR demonstrated acceptable to high reliability, validity, and responsiveness. However, these findings should be interpreted cautiously given the predominance of minor surgical procedures, the presence of a ceiling effect, and the low reliability of the Visceral Function domain. Future research involving multicentre recruitment should be conducted with patient populations undergoing major gastrointestinal surgeries, and convergent validity and test-retest reliability should be evaluated.