Introduction: This study aimed to conduct the validity and reliability of
the (Pictures of Facial Affect) POFA test for the Turkish population and
contribute to increasing the number of tests that are still insufficient in
our country.
Methods: This descriptive, randomized controlled study was conducted
in two steps, namely Step 1 (Pilot Study and Validity Studies) and Step
2 (Reliability Study Step). The number of participants was planned
regarding the original study by which the POFA test was developed.
The EYES test was also used for comparison. In the pilot study, the most
widely identified emotions from 47 of 110 photos in the POFA test were
chosen as the new POFA picture set to be used in the reliability and
validity study under the name “POFA Test Short Form”. A total of 100
participants, including 82 healthy volunteers and 18 essential tremor (ET)
patients, were enrolled in the first step of the study. Another cohort of
22 healthy volunteers was enrolled in the second step of the study for
test-retest reliability analysis.
Results: A significant positive correlation was found between the total
POFA Test Short Form and EYES Test scores in the healthy volunteer
group in terms of criterion-related validity (r=0.44, p<0.01). There were
statistically significant differences between healthy volunteers and ET
groups regarding EYES Total, POFA Total, POFA Sadness, POFA Anger, and
POFA Neutral scores. It was observed that the 47-item POFA Test Short
Form total score showed skewness and kurtosis, which demonstrated
suitability for clinical use.
Conclusion: The POFA Test Short Form was found to be a valid and
reliable assessment tool in the Turkish population to be used in studies
on emotion recognition and was shown to be beneficial for the
discrimination of healthy individuals and ET patients.
Keywords: Essential tremor, POFA, reliability, validity