Urdu version of Oswestry disability index; a reliability and validity study

Area of Science:

• Rehabilitation Medicine
• Clinical Psychology
• Health Sciences

Background:

• The Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) is a widely used tool for assessing lumbar radiculopathy disability.
• Existing ODI versions lack Urdu translation and psychometric validation.
• This gap hinders accurate disability assessment in Urdu-speaking populations.

Purpose of the Study:

• To translate the Oswestry Disability Index into Urdu (ODI-U) following established guidelines.
• To evaluate the psychometric properties of the ODI-U in Urdu-speaking patients with lumbar radiculopathy.

Main Methods:

• 108 participants (54 healthy, 54 with lumbar radiculopathy) were recruited.
• Participants completed ODI-U, VAS pain, VAS disability, and SF-36.
• Psychometric properties assessed included test-retest reliability, internal consistency, construct validity (convergent and discriminative), and content validity.

Main Results:

• ODI-U demonstrated excellent test-retest reliability (ICC=0.95) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.89).
• Exploratory factor analysis revealed a one-factor structure explaining 52.5% of the variance.
• The ODI-U showed significant discriminative validity between healthy individuals and patients (P<0.001) and moderate convergent validity with pain and disability measures.

Conclusions:

• The Urdu version of the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI-U) possesses adequate psychometric properties.
• ODI-U is a reliable and valid instrument for measuring disability in Urdu-speaking patients with lumbar radiculopathy.