Background: Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) scale is a well known tool to evaluate the functional balance. Balance impairment may accompany to knee osteoarthritis.
Objective: The aim was to investigate the reliability and validity of the Turkish version of ABC in knee osteoarthritis.
Methods: Forty-nine patients with knee osteoarthritis were included. All the participants were evaluated by ABC and Berg Balance Scale (BBS). Knee Injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS) was used for the assessment of the knee related condition.
Results: Mean age was 64.7 ± 9.2. Eighty-five percent was women. Mean ABC score was 53.5% and BBS score was 40. Interclass correlation coefficient was 0.95. There was a statistically significant positive correlation between the test-retest results (t= 1.90, p= 0.063). Correlation coefficient was high (p= 0.001, r= 0.953). Cronbach's alpha was 0.97. There was a significant positive correlation between ABC-T and BBS, the symptoms, daily living activities and quality of life subscales of KOOS (r= 0.555, p< 0.001; r= 0.424, r= 0.379, r= 0.621, p< 0.01). ABC-T correlated negatively with the radiological severity (r = -0.316, p< 0.05).
Conclusions: ABC-T is a reproducible test with excellent internal consistency and construct validity in knee osteoarthritis. Balance confidence was moderate and related with the symptoms, daily living activities, disease severity and quality of life.
Keywords: Activities-specific Balance Confidence (ABC) scale; Turkish version; balance; knee osteoarthritis; reliability; validity.