Reliability of the Danish version of the short questionnaire to assess health-enhancing physical activity (SQUASH).

Background: There is abundant evidence that physical activity has a fundamental role in the prevention and treatment of chronic disease. Questionnaires are simple and inexpensive to apply to measure physical activity.
Purpose / Aim of Study: Translate and cross-cultural adapt the short questionnaire to assess health-enhancing physical activity (SQUASH) to Danish and to investigate the reliability and discriminative validity of the Danish version.
Materials and Methods: The study was conducted according to the COSMIN guidelines. The reliability was evaluated in 50 healthy individuals, mean age 47.2 � 12.6 years and mean period 37.1 � 14.9 days between test and retest. The relative reliability was assessed with intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and the absolute reliability with standard error of measurement (SEM) and smallest detectable change (SDC). The discriminative validity was evaluated in 22 patients with hip dysplasia, mean age 34.8 � 7.9 years, who were compared with 26 healthy individuals matched on age.
version of SQUASH can distinguish between individuals, but the absolute Findings / Results: For the total activity score ICC was 0.71 (95% CI: 0.54; 0.82), SEM was 2351 MET x min/week (25% of the grand mean) and the SDC was 6517 MET x min/week (70% of the grand mean). There was no significant difference between healthy adults and patients with hip dysplasia in total activity score but a significant difference in time spent on activities of high intensity.
Conclusions: Relative raliability was acceptable and indicates that the Danish reliability was poor and SQUASH is not considered suitable for measuring physical activity on an individual level. SQUASH was unable to discriminate between healthy individuals and patients with hip dysplasia with respect to total activity score, but was able to discriminate on time spent on activities of high intensity.