Cross-cultural validation and formulation of key evidence-based back pain messages for Zambian nurses

Workplace attitudes among nurses with back pain disability are usually unsupportive as nurses tend to rely on passive approaches like pain medications and taking sick leave to manage the impact of their back pain experiences.

To lessen the burden of back pain disability, this paper aimed to collate information from publicly accessible health resources such as posters, pamphlets, and electronic resources and cross-culturally validate this information for nurses in Zambia.

Focus group discussions were used to produce the validation data for this study's qualitative research design. For cross-cultural validation, deductive analysis was carried out using Herdman's framework for Conceptual Equivalence, Item Equivalence, and Semantic Equivalence.

The 14 messages on back pain given to the participants were reviewed to enhance clarity, applicability, and acceptability. Messages with similar meanings were merged, reducing the total number to 7. The revisions made to the 14 back pain messages aimed to improve understanding, acceptability, and relevance within the contexts and circumstances in which nurses' practice. This is important because the messages adapted for use in low- and middle-income countries like Zambia are equivalent and applicable to those originally developed in high-income countries.