Neighborhood walkability scale (News - Brazil): Back translation and Reliability

Resumen

In Brazil, there are few validated scales that establish the relationship between environmental barriers and physical activity. Therefore, the aim of this study was to analyze the translation, back translation and reliability of the Neighborhood Environment Walkability Scale (NEWS) into Brazilian Portuguese. The methodological procedures were structured in two phases. The first phase was to translate and back translate NEWS to verify the instrument language. The second phase was he test and re-test reliability of the questionnaire. The sample was composed of 75 people (45 women and 30 men, mean age of 33 ± 15 years). The statistical analyses to verify the Brazilian NEWS were performed with the SPSS program (version 11.0) for intra-class correlation and reliability for the dimensions; Spearman correlation test and intra-class correlation for all indicators from this questionnaire. The significance level adopted in this survey was p<0.05. The results in this study demonstrated that the ? value of the questionnaire (0.8042) could be considered as a good reliability coefficient. The dimensions evaluated by this instrument presented a strong correlation (R = 0.98 -1.00) and good credibility (0.655 < ? < 0.904). The indicators exhibited moderate to strong values for reliability (0.55 < rs < 0.99), and a strong correlation (0.98< R <1.00). According to these results, the Brazilian NEWS questionnaire had acceptable linguistic validity and reliability. Therefore, the Brazilian NEWS questionnaire can be used as an instrument to evaluate the relationship between environmental barriers and physical activity in communities.