title: The development and validation of a Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire - LKQ.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The objective of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire on specific knowledge about low back pain entitled "The Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire".
  
  
  BACKGROUND
  There is a need for instruments to assess patient knowledge regarding chronic illness. Such methods can contribute to the education of patients.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire was developed through five focus groups. The questionnaire was distributed to 50 patients to assess their comprehension of the terms. To assess the reproducibility, 20 patients were surveyed by two different interviewers on the same day and twice by a single interviewer with a one-to-two week interval. For the construct validation, the Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire was given to 20 healthcare professionals with knowledge on low back pain and 20 patients to determine whether the questionnaire would discriminate between the two different populations. To assess the sensitivity of the questionnaire to changes in the knowledge level of the patients, it was given to 60 patients who were randomly assigned to the Intervention Group and the Control Group. The Intervention Group answered the questionnaire both before and after attending a chronic back pain educational program (back school), whereas the Control Group answered the questionnaire twice with an interval of one month and no educational intervention.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The focus groups generated a questionnaire with 16 items. The Spearman's correlation coefficient and the intra-class correlation coefficients ranged from 0.61 to 0.95 in the assessments of the intra-observer and inter-observer reproducibility (p< 0.01). In the construct validation, the healthcare professionals and patients showed statistically different scores (p< 0.001). In the phase regarding the sensitivity to change, the Intervention Group exhibited a significant increase in their specific knowledge over the Control Group (p< 0.001).
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire was validated and proved to be reproducible, valid and sensitive to changes in patient knowledge.
authors.affiliation: Division of Rheumatology, Federal University of São Paulo - São Paulo Paulo/SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Simone Carazzato
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Maciel
authors.forename: Fabio
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Jennings
authors.forename: Anamaria
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Jones
authors.forename: Jamil
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Natour
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002908:Chronic Disease; D004521:Educational Measurement / Q000379:methods / Q000592:standards; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010353:Patient Education as Topic; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D055815:Young Adult