The Lumbar Spine Outcomes Questionnaire: its development and psychometric properties

Area of Science:

• Orthopedics
• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Health Outcomes Research

Background:

• Existing instruments for low back pain (LBP) lack comprehensive coverage of factors crucial for treatment outcome evaluation.
• There is a need for a disease-specific tool to assess LBP complaints and treatment outcomes effectively.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate the psychometric properties of a comprehensive, disease-specific questionnaire for LBP.
• To create a tool for characterizing LBP complaints and evaluating treatment outcomes.

Main Methods:

• A clinical-cohort study involving a large convenience sample of 2539 LBP patients.
• Patients completed the Lumbar Spine Outcomes Questionnaire (LSOQ) at baseline, 12, and 24 months post-treatment.
• Six composite scores (LBP severity, leg pain severity, functional disability, psychological distress, physical symptoms, health-care utilization) were derived to assess reliability, validity, and responsiveness.

Main Results:

• The LSOQ demonstrated good test-retest reliability with high intraclass coefficients of correlation (0.76–0.88).
• Strong construct validity was confirmed through correlations with established questionnaires (Oswestry, SF-36) and significant differences between known patient groups.
• The LSOQ showed high responsiveness, with large effect sizes (0.68–1.17) differentiating improved from unimproved patients.

Conclusions:

• The Lumbar Spine Outcomes Questionnaire (LSOQ) is a patient-acceptable, easy-to-administer, reliable, valid, and responsive instrument.
• It captures key information including pain, disability, psychological distress, and healthcare utilization.
• The LSOQ is recommended for clinical practice, research, and regulatory review for patients with low back pain.