Preliminary assessment of the content validity and internal consistency of the Vietnamese version of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory among caregivers of pediatric patients before cardiac surgery

Background: The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is widely used to assess state and trait anxiety. Its use across different linguistic and cultural contexts requires appropriate translation, cultural adaptation, and evaluation of measurement properties. Objectives: To conduct a preliminary assessment of the content validity and internal consistency of the Vietnamese version of the STAI among caregivers of pediatric patients prior to cardiac surgery. Methods: A methodological study was conducted at University Medical Center Ho Chi Minh City, involving translation and cultural adaptation of the STAI according to ISPOR guidance, content validity assessment by six experts, and preliminary internal consistency evaluation among 30 consecutively recruited caregivers. Content validity was assessed using I-CVI, S-CVI/Ave, S-CVI/UA, and modified kappa. Internal consistency was evaluated using Cronbach’s alpha with 95% confidence intervals and corrected item - total correlations. Results: All 40 items achieved an I-CVI of 1 for clarity, comprehensibility, and relevance; S-CVI/ Ave and S-CVI/UA were both 1, and modified kappa was 1 for all items. Cronbach’s alpha was 0.933 (95% CI: 0.893–0.963) for STAI-S and 0.932 (95% CI: 0.892–0.963) for STAI-T. Item T24 had a corrected item-total correlation of 0.110; deleting T24 increased the STAI-T alpha to 0.939. Conclusion: The Vietnamese version of the STAI demonstrated good content validity and high internal consistency in this sample. These findings provide preliminary evidence; larger studies are needed to evaluate structural validity, temporal stability, and other measurement properties.