Use of modified Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire in patients with postirradiation neck disability: validation study.
BACKGROUND
No available measure exists for postirradiation neck disability. Adoption of the Chinese Northwick Park Neck Pain Questionnaire (NPQ) for patients with postirradiation neck disability was examined in this study.


METHODS
Eight physiotherapists and five patients were invited to test the validity of the content. Forty-three patients with neck disability were recruited to evaluate test-retest reliability and internal consistency. The level of neck discomfort, range of neck motion and maximal isometric neck muscle strength, and SF-36 health score were measured for construct validity testing.


RESULTS
The questionnaire had good content validity, a high degree of test-retest reliability, internal consistency (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC], 0.94; Cronbach's alpha, 0.88), and good construct validity. NPQ correlated significantly with most of the subscores of SF-36 (r(s), -0.43 to - 0.71) and numeric rating scale (r(s) = 0.69).


CONCLUSIONS
The modified Chinese NPQ was found to be reliable and valid for the evaluation of postirradiation neck disability.
Yeung
Polina L C
PL
Department of Physiotherapy, Prince of Wales Hospital, Shatin, Hong Kong.
Chiu
Thomas T W
TT
Leung
Arran S L
AS
D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D019547:Neck Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000209:etiology; D010147:Pain Measurement; D026741:Physical Therapy Modalities / Q000592:standards*; D011832:Radiation Injuries / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D016059:Range of Motion, Articular / Q000502:physiology; D012016:Reference Values; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012737:Sex Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires