Validation of the Turkish Version of the Surgical Fear Questionnaire

Preoperative surgical fear is an emotional reaction that can be observed in many patients who are waiting to undergo a surgical procedure. The Surgical Fear Questionnaire (SFQ) was originally developed to determine the level of fear in patients who are to undergo surgery; this study aims to translate the questionnaire into the Turkish language and to test the validity and reliability of this Turkish version. Methodological research model. The population of this methodological study included the patients who presented to surgical clinics at a university hospital in Turkey between January and August 2016 and were scheduled to undergo elective surgery; the sample involved 405 patients who met the inclusion criteria. Results of the analyses showed that the SFQ can be used with two subscales—the S subscale, which shows the short-term consequences, and the L subscale, which shows the long-term consequences of surgery. The mean score of the patients was 18.03 ± 11.44 on the former, 19.52 ± 11.87 on the latter, and 37.55 ± 21.11 for the entire questionnaire. The Cronbach's α coefficient was 0.96 for the SFQ-S subscale, 0.90 for the SFQ-L subscale, and 0.93 for the entire questionnaire. In this study, the translated SFQ was found to have a similar structure to the original questionnaire and a high level of validity and reliability and therefore can be used in Turkey.