Determination of validity and reliability of the Persian version of the 9-item Berg balance scale in elderly people

Human beings rely on numerous systems to sustain their balance as they perform their activities of daily living. In this way, the purpose of this study was to determine validity and reliability of the Persian version of the 9-item Berg balance scale in elderly people.
A final version of the Berg balance scale (BBS) was translated and developed based on the feedbacks provided by experts in elderly studies, and then distributed among 100 volunteering senior citizens from a residential care in Semnan (emam ali). The data were analyzed using descriptive (confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Cronbach’s alpha) and inferential statistics.
Our findings indicated proper fitness of the CFA model over the Persian version of the short form of the BBS. In addition, Cronbach’s alphas demonstrated acceptable internal consistency of this measurer.
It is concluded that the proper translation and selecting a heterogeneous sample may have contributed to the fitness of the CFA model