Reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the coronary artery disease empowerment scale (CADES) in patients with coronary artery disease after percutaneous coronary intervention

Background Empowerment is a comprehensive concept involving intrapersonal, interactional, and behavioral aspects. However, there is a lack of a specific empowerment scale for Coronary artery disease (CAD) related to knowledge and skills in China. The reliability and validity of the Coronary Artery Disease Empowerment Scale (CADES) need to be tested. This study aimed to assess the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of CADES among patients with CAD in China. Methods The study adopted a cross-sectional design. After obtaining the copyright by contacting the author, the original English CADES was developed into Chinese by forward translation, back-translation, cross-cultural adaptation, and a pretest (30 patients). The Chinese version of CADES was administered to 391 CAD patients between September 2022 and June 2023, with the reliability and validity of the version evaluated. Exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis were performed to examine the underlying factor structure of the translated questionnaire. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient, Guttman's split-half coefficient, and McDonald's omega coefficient were calculated to verify the scale's reliability. Results For the Chinese version of CADES, the scale-content validity index was 0.972, with the item-content validity index ranging from 0.86 to 1.00. The questionnaire comprised 25 items, and exploratory factor analysis extracted four factors with loadings > 0.40, explaining 62.382% of the total variance. An acceptable model fit was achieved (chi(2)/df = 1.764, RMSEA = 0.060, TLI = 0.901, CFI = 0.912, IFI = 0.913). The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of the total questionnaire was 0.928, with coefficients for the four factors ranging from 0.683 to 0.913. The split-half reliability coefficient was 0.777, and the McDonald's omega reliability coefficient was 0.926. Conclusions The Chinese version of CADES is reliable and valid among CAD patients in China. This instrument can serve as a valuable reference for guiding the implementation of targeted intervention strategies tailored to the empowerment status of CAD patients in clinical practice.