The test-retest reliability of a questionnaire on the occurrence and severity of back pain in a German population sample.
OBJECTIVE
Back pain is considered as one of the most frequent disturbances of health. The available study aimed at the evaluation of the test-retest reliability of fundamental questions on the occurrence and severity of back pain that have been widely used in international population surveys.


METHODS
Four hundred and eighty-seven inhabitants of Lübeck/Germany aged 18 to 74 were mailed a first questionnaire on back pain. All respondents were resent the identical questionnaire two weeks after initial mailing. Additionally, they received a questionnaire on selected back pain items covering the time interval between the test and retest survey to identify cases with instable answering patterns due to back pain related changes, exclusively.


RESULTS
One hundred and seventy-nine respondents took part in both the test and retest survey (response rate 36.8%) and were included in our reliability analyses. Respondents of the first questionnaire were of higher social status than the nonrespondents. Dependent on scale level, Cohen's kappa, quadratic weighted kappa, and intraclass correlation coefficients were computed, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
All evaluated questions reached good up to very good reliability scores.
Schlademann
Susanne
S
University of Lübeck, Institute of Social Medicine. susanne.schlademann@uk-sh.de
Meyer
Thorsten
T
Raspe
Heiner
H
D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D001294:Attitude to Health; D001416:Back Pain / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D004185:Disability Evaluation; D005260:Female; D005858:Germany; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010342:Patient Acceptance of Health Care; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires