Validity and reliability of a Chinese-language instrument for continuous assessment of exercise stages of change in adults

Background: Single- and five-item measures have been used prevalently to assess exercise stages of change. Few studies have investigated the development of instruments that are able to continuously measure exercise stages of change and have conducted associated psychometric analyses. Purpose: This study aimed to translate the original, English-language version of the University of Rhode Island Change Assessment-Exercise 2 (URICA-E2), a continuous exercise stages of change assessment instrument, into Chinese and then to test the validity and reliability of the translated version. Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted. Participants consisted of 325 adults from Taipei, Taiwan. The URICA-E2 was translated into Chinese using a standardized procedure. Psychometric analyses, including validity, reliability, and cluster analysis, of the Chinese-version instrument were conducted. Results: The content validity index was .987. Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed that the overall model fit was standardized, as the factor loadings of all of the items and the composite reliability and average variance extracted for the six exercise stages of change satisfied the convergent validity criteria. The average variance extracted for each construct of the stages of behavior change satisfied the discriminatory validity criteria. Values of Cronbach's α for the six exercise stages ranged from .80 to .94. The intraclass correlation coefficients for test–retest reliability after 2 weeks ranged between .74 and .87. Conclusions: The Chinese-language version of the URICA-E2 developed in this study exhibited excellent validity and reliability. This instrument may be used by healthcare professionals and the academic community to effectively and continuously measure the intentions and attitudes of adults at various exercise stages of change and to guide the provision of appropriate interventions.