ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Med.
Sec. Family Medicine and Primary Care
Volume 12 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fmed.2025.1602198
Cultural Translation of the Constipation Assessment A Study on the Reliability and Validity of the Chinese Version of the Constipation Severity Index
Provisionally accepted
- 1First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, China
- 2University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, California, United States
- 3School of Nursing, Jiangxi Medical College, Shang Rao, China
- 4Huaian Hospital of Huaian City,, Huai'an, China
- 5School of Nursing, Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, China
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Background: Assessing the severity of constipation in patients is important for tailoring treatment plans and monitoring outcomes. However, validated assessment tools for constipation severity are limited in China.Objective: This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the Constipation Severity Index (CSI). Methods: A cross-sectional survey was conducted in two tertiary hospitals in China. A total of 621 patients meeting the diagnostic criteria for constipation were enrolled. The scale's reliability and validity were assessed using Content Validity Index (CVI), Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA), Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA), internal consistency, and test-retest reliability. Results: The expert-rated Item-level Content Validity Index (I-CVI) was 0.90. EFA revealed a three-factor structure comprising 16 items, accounting for 71.81% of the total variance. CFA results suggested acceptable model fit (χ2 = 257.711, df = 96, p < 0.001; CFI = 0.965; TLI = 0.956; RMSEA = 0.074, 90% CI: 0.063-0.085; SRMR = 0.047). The scale demonstrated good internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.936, McDonald's Omega = 0.937). Conclusion: This study provides preliminary evidence for the reliability and validity of the Chinese version of the CSI. While the initial results are promising, further research is needed to validate its applicability in various clinical settings and patient populations. The CSI may potentially serve as a useful tool for assessing constipation severity in Chinese patients, but additional validation studies are necessary before its widespread clinical application.
Keywords: Constipation Severity Index, China, psychometric properties, Validation, Chronic constipation, Patient-reported outcome measure
Received: 31 Mar 2025; Accepted: 04 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Hu, Varma, Huang, Wang, Shang, Xu and Li. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Xia Li, First Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou, Liaoning Province, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.