The Falls Efficacy Scale-International (FES-I) was developed by the Prevention of Falls Network Europe group for assessing fear of falling in different cultural contexts and range of languages. The FES-I comprised both easy and more complex physical and social activities. The FES-I has good reliability and validity in community-dwelling older adults in many countries. Since an instrument to assess fear of falling in Thai older adults has not been identified, the Thai version of FES-I has been established.  

Objective: To test psychometric properties of the FES-I.

 Material and methods: A 2-phase approach was employed in this study: translations, and psycho­metric testing. To test construct validity and internal consistency, the Thai FES-I was completed by 433 Thai older adults in Nakhon Si Thammarat Province during January to February 2010.  

Results: The results revealed that the percentage of participants who reported no fear of falling at all was 15.5%. Evaluation of construct validity through principal component factor analysis with varimax rotation and using factor loading greater than 0.4 yielded three factors which explained 72.4% of the variance in fear of falling. Cronbach’s alpha for overall of the Thai FES-I was 0.95 and mean inter-items correlations of the 16 items FES-I was 0.67. Older participants (75 years and over) had significantly higher scores than younger participants (60-74 years). Total scores were significantly higher in women having chronic illness and taking anti-hypertensive drugs.  

Conclusion: The Thai FES-I has been shown to have acceptable internal reliability and construct validity in Thai community-dwelling older adults. It is able to assess concerns relating to basic and more complex activities both in the physical and social activities. Assessment of subjective fear of falling may have vital implementation of fall and fear of falling interventions.