Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2025 Jun 3;13(1):593.
doi: 10.1186/s40359-025-02948-x.

The adaptation of the infertility distress scale into Chinese: cross-cultural adaptation, reliability and validity

Siyan Liu  1 , Pei Zhang  2 , Xian Tian  2 , Lingrong Xiao  2 , Junru Li  2 , Jinwei Yang  2 , Ziwei Feng  2 , Hongmei Wu  3 , Yingze Zheng  4
Affiliations

The adaptation of the infertility distress scale into Chinese: cross-cultural adaptation, reliability and validity

Siyan Liu et al. BMC Psychol. .

Abstract

Background and problem: Women with infertility frequently experience unique psychological challenges. However, the commonly used universal distress scales may not adequately represent their actual psychological state.

Objective: This study focused on the translation and cultural adaptation of Infertility Distress Scale (IDS) to Chinese, and the subsequent evaluation of its validity and reliability.

Methods: Using Brislin translation model, the IDS was translated and culturally adapted for Chinese women. Then, a questionnaire survey was conducted with 592 infertile women using convenient sampling for assessing whether our translated Chinese IDS version was valid and reliable.

Results: This Chinese IDS version included four dimensions involving 23 items. The item-content validity index (I-CVI) was 0.90-1.00, with the Scale-CVI for Universal Agreement (S-CVI/UA) of 0.91. Additionally, the Scale-CVI for Average (S-CVI/Ave) was 0.99 on average. Upon exploratory factor analysis, four common factors were identified, which explained 68.08% of variance. Moreover, a good fit was obtained by confirmatory factor analysis. In addition, the correlation coefficient between the subjective experience dimension and the Kessler 10 Psychological Distress Scale was 0.64, and the correlation coefficient between the Infertility Distress Scale and the Fertility Problem Inventory was 0.68. The overall scale reliability (Cronbach’s α) was 0.95.

Conclusion: While the validated Chinese IDS offers significant insights into infertility-related distress, its applicability should consider demographic variances and the contextual limitations of the study, advocating for caution in generalizing findings across broader populations.

Keywords: Cross-cultural adaptation; Infertility; Psychological distress; Validity.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics approval and consent to participate: Informed consent to participate in this study was obtained from all study participants. The study was reviewed and approved by the Ethics Committee of the Harbin Medical University, Daqing Campus (received permission on March 23, 2024, Clinical Trial Number: HMUDQ20240323001). The study was performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations (especially Declaration of Helsinki). Consent for publication: Not Applicable. Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
CFA diagram of the Chinese IDS version
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

References

    1. Nik Hazlina NH, Norhayati MN, Shaiful Bahari I, Nik Muhammad Arif NA. Worldwide prevalence, risk factors and psychological impact of infertility among women: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMJ Open. 2022;12(3):e057132. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Bagade T, Thapaliya K, Breuer E, Kamath R, Li Z, Sullivan E, et al. Investigating the association between infertility and psychological distress using Australian longitudinal study on women’s health (ALSWH). Sci Rep. 2022;12(1):10808. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Li Q, Wang T, Zhen Y. Effect of image dialogue therapy on mental health and happiness of infertile women. China J Health Psychol. 2021. 10.13342/j.cnki.cjhp.2021.09.003.
    1. AlAhmari LSM, Alzahrani HS, Alzahrani N, AlDhafyan SO, Al-Qahtani RH, Al-Zaid JA, et al. Measures of health-related quality of life in PCOS women: a cross sectional study from Saudi Arabia. Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. 2024;28(5):1913–9. - PubMed
    1. Li QL, Wang C, Cao KX, Zhang L, Xu YS, Chang L, Liu ZH, Yang AJ, Xue YX. Sleep characteristics before assisted reproductive technology treatment predict reproductive outcomes: a prospective cohort study of Chinese infertile women. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2023;14:1178396. - PMC - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources