Purpose: To translate long form, interview-administered International Physical Activity Questionnaire (IPAQ) from English to Persian and evaluate its validity, reliability and reproducibility.
Methods: A forward-backward translation procedure was followed to develop the Persian version of the IPAQ. A total of 218 respondents (53.7% women, aged 22-76 yr) completed the Persian version in Tehran, Iran. To examine the test-retest reliability, 48 healthy volunteers completed the IPAQ twice during a 7-day period.. The PA indicators derived from the IPAQ were assessed for reliability and were compared with aerobic fitness and body mass index (BMI) for construct validity.
Results: In general, the questionnaire was received well and all domains met the minimum reliability standards (intra-class correlation [ICC]>0.7), except for Leisure-time physical activity (PA). Aerobic fitness showed a weak positive correlation with all of the PA results derived from the IPAQ. A significant correlation was observed between the IPAQ data for total PA and both aerobic fitness (r=0.33, P<0.001) and BMI (r=0.26, P<0.001). Performing a known group comparison analysis, the results indicated that the questionnaire was discriminated well between the subgroups of the study samples expected to be different in their physical activity.
Conclusions: The Persian version of the long form, interview-administered IPAQ had an acceptable reliability and validity for assessing total PA in our Iranian sample of individuals. It may be a useful instrument for generating internationally comparable data on PA.
Keywords: IPAQ; Metabolic equivalent; Physical Activity; Questionnaire; Reliability and Validity.