A cross-cultural validation of the Attention Questionnaire of Rehabilitated Athletes Returning to competition.

OBJECTIVES

To culturally adapt the Attention Questionnaire of Rehabilitated Athletes Returning to Competition (AQ-RARC) in the Italian language.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional study.

SETTING

Italian athletes.

PARTICIPANTS

We recruited 324 athletes (215 men, 109 women) divided in two samples: 101 injured athletes returning to their first competition following injury, 223 non-injured athletes making their first competition of the regular season.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

The AQ-RARC-IT, the Psychobiosocial States Scale (PBS-ST), and a Concentration Disruption scale. Athletes completed the questionnaires at the end of their first competition. We investigated the construct validity, the internal consistency, and the concurrent validity of all measures.

RESULTS

A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) supported the two-factor structure of the AQ-RARC-IT yielding acceptable fit indices, CFI = 0.930, TLI = 0.912, RMSEA (90% CI) = 0.100 (.076-.123), and SRMR = 0.082. Concurrent validity was evaluated through Pearson's correlation coefficients between measures. Correlations ranged in magnitude from weak to moderately high.

CONCLUSIONS

Study findings showed satisfactory psychometric properties of the AQ-RARC-IT. The questionnaire can be used for clinical and research purposes.