The Japanese Orthopedic Association Back Pain Evaluation Questionnaire: A Turkish validation study

The aim of this study was to apply cross-cultural adaptation and validity assessment to the Turkish translation of the Japanese Orthopedic Association Back Pain Evaluation Questionnaire applied to patients conservatively monitored for lumbar disc hernia and narrowing of the lumbar canal.

The questionnaire was translated into Turkish based on guidelines. In respect of the comprehensibility of the obtained pre-final version of the questionnaire, a pilot test was applied to 20 healthy individuals. The patients were requested to complete the final version of the questionnaire after an orthopedic and physical therapy assistant doctor (resident) had completed the diagnosis and demographic information. To evaluate the retest reliability, the test was applied a second time, 14 days (±3 days) after the first application, again in the Orthopedics and Physical Therapy Outpatient Clinic.

The study was completed with a total of 215 individuals, comprising 107 patients and 108 healthy volunteers. When Turkish version of the questionnaire scale was evaluated of the patients and healthy volunteers together, the internal consistency was determined at the levels of Cronbach's α excellent. The lowest correlations of all the questionnaire scale items with the scale sub-dimensions was at the level of r = 0.509, which demonstrated that there was a sufficient validity level of the Turkish translated questionnaire scale. A statistically significant direct correlation at a high level was seen between the pre and post points in all the scale sub-dimensions.

The results of the current study showed that Turkish version of the questionnaire had sufficient reliability and validity in the evaluation of low back pain and resulting dysfunction and disability in patients with LDH and narrowing of the lumbar canal.