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Age and Ageing Advance Access originally published online on November 20, 2007
Age and Ageing 2008 37(1):45-50; doi:10.1093/ageing/afm157
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Copyright © The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the British Geriatrics Society.

The Short FES-I: a shortened version of the falls efficacy scale-international to assess fear of falling

Gertrudis I. J. M. Kempen1,, Lucy Yardley2, Jolanda C. M. Van Haastregt1, G. A. Rixt Zijlstra1, Nina Beyer3, Klaus Hauer4 and Chris Todd5

1 School for Public Health and Primary Care, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
2 School of Psychology, University of Southampton, UK
3 Institute of Sports Medicine–Copenhagen and Department of Physiotherapy, Copenhagen University Hospital Bispebjerg, Denmark
4 Robert-Bosch-Krankenhaus, Stuttgart and Bethanien-Krankenhaus, University of Heidelberg, Germany
5 School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work, University of Manchester, UK

Address correspondence to: Gertrudis I. J. M. Kempen. Fax: (+31) (0)43 3884169, Email: g.kempen{at}zw.unimaas.nl

Background: the 16-item Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) has been shown to have excellent reliability and construct validity. However, for practical and clinical purposes, a shortened version of the FES-I would be useful.

Objective: to develop and validate a shortened version of FES-I while preserving good psychometric properties.

Design: initial development of a shortened version using data from a UK survey (Short FES-I; n = 704), test of reliability and validity of the Short FES-I using data from a Dutch survey (n = 300).

Setting: community samples.

Methods: comparison of reliability and validity of the Short FES-I and the FES-I in a random sample of 193 people aged between 70 and 92.

Results: the internal and 4-week test–retest reliability of the Short FES-I is excellent (Cronbach's alpha 0.92, intra-class coefficient 0.83) and comparable to the FES-I. The correlation between the Short FES-I and the FES-I is 0.97. Patterns in differences with respect to mean scores according to age, sex, falls history, and overall fear of falling are similar for the Short FES-I and the FES-I. The FES-I had slightly better power to discriminate between groups differentiated by age, sex, falls history, and fear falling, but differences are small.

Conclusions: the Short FES-I is a good and feasible measure to assess fear of falling in older persons. However, if researchers or clinicians are particularly interested in the distributions of specific fear of falling-related activities not included in the Short FES-I, the use of the full FES-I is recommended.

Keywords: fear, accidental falls, quality of life, aged, questionnaires, elderly

Received 15 February 2007; accepted in revised form 19 June 2007.


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