Cross-cultural and psychometric property assessment of the Moorong Self-Efficacy Scale in Chinese patients with spinal cord injury

Purpose To translate the Moorong Self-Efficacy Scale (MSES) into Chinese and to examine its reliability and validity in patients with spinal cord injury (SCI). Methods A cross-sectional study design was employed. The MSES was translated into Chinese by forward- and back-translation and its psychometric properties were examined among 176 patients with SCI recruited from four rehabilitation centers in China using convenience sampling. Results In this study, all 176 patients were aged from 18 to 90 years old with an average of 39.51 +/- 14.07. The content validity index of the scale was 0.99. Principal components analysis with varimax orthogonal rotation was used. Three factors were extracted accounting for 39.083%, 11.149%, and 8.391% of the total variance and labeled as general self-efficacy (eight items), social self-efficacy (five items), and self-management self-efficacy (three items). Confirmatory factor analysis showed acceptable fit compared with previous studies. Pearson's correlation coefficient between the total scores of the MSES and the General Self-Efficacy Scale was 0.660 (p < 0.001). Cronbach's alpha coefficient was 0.892 for total items and 0.862, 0.817, and 0.739 for the three factors. The interclass correlation coefficients between the pretest and retest were 0.859 (0.733-0.925) for the total score. Conclusions The Chinese version of the MSES is reliable and valid, suggesting that it is suitable for evaluating self-efficacy of Chinese patients with SCI.