Physical activity questionnaire for older children (PAQ-C): Arabic translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and psychometric validation in school-aged children in Saudi Arabia

• Published in: PeerJ (San Francisco, CA) CA), 2022-04, Vol.10, p.e13237-e13237, Article e13237
• Main Authors: Sirajudeen, Mohamed Sherif, Waly, Mohamed, Manzar, Md Dilshad, Alqahtani, Mazen, Alzhrani, Msaad, Alanazi, Ahmad, Unnikrishnan, Radhakrishnan, Muthusamy, Hariraja, Saibannavar, Rashmi, Alrubaia, Wafa
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adaptation; Adolescent; Age groups; Analysis; Arabic language; Child; Children; Children's furniture; Cross-Cultural Comparison; Data collection; Demography; Elementary school students; Ethnicity; Exercise; Factor analysis; Humans; Kinesiology; Middle East; Obesity; Pediatrics; Physical activity; Physical fitness; Psychiatry and Psychology; Psychometrics - methods; Public Health; Quantitative psychology; Questionnaires; Recall; Reliability; Reproducibility of Results; Sample size; Saudi Arabia; Schools; Statistical analysis; Students; Surveys; Surveys and Questionnaires; Systematic review; Translating and interpreting; Translations; Validity
• ISSN: 2167-8359; 2167-8359
• DOI: 10.7717/peerj.13237

The validity of the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Older Children (PAQ-C) has been mostly studied in North America and Europe. We investigated the psychometric validation of the Arabic version of the PAQ-C in students in Saudi Arabia. The students ( = 327, age = 8-14 years) of six primary schools in the Majmaah region participated in the study. Participants completed the PAQ-C, and their demographics were recorded. The PAQ-C scores satisfied the following factor analysis assumptions: diagonal elements of the anti-image correlation matrix (>0.5), Bartlett's test of sphericity ( < 0.001), determinant (>0.00001), Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test of sampling adequacy (>0.8), and communality (all values > 0.2). Exploratory factor analysis results were inconclusive, with two measures favoring a 2-factor solution (Kaiser's criteria (Eigenvalue ≥ 1), and cumulative variance rule (>40%)); whereas, the scree test and the Monte Carlo parallel analysis favored a 1-factor structure. The confirmatory factor analysis favored a 1-factor solution: highest CFI, lowest RMSEA, non-significant χ statistics, and lowest χ /df. The values of item-total correlation, corrected item-total correlation, and Cronbach's alpha if an item was deleted, ranged from 0.20-0.57, 0.42-0.64, and 0.70-0.75, respectively. The PAQ-C showed a Cronbach's alpha of 0.74. A 1-factor structure of the Arabic version of the PAQ-C had adequate psychometric validity in schoolchildren in Saudi Arabia.