Reliability and validity of simplified Chinese version of Roland-Morris questionnaire in evaluating rural and urban patients with low back pain.
OBJECTIVE
The causes of low back pain in China and Western countries are extremely different. We attempted to analyze the risk factors of low back pain in urban and rural patients under the dual economy with the simplified Chinese version of Roland-Morris disability questionnaire (SC-RMDQ) to demonstrate that SC-RMDQ could evaluate patients with low back pain arising from different causes.


METHODS
Roland-Morris disability questionnaire was translated into SCRMDQ according to international guidelines for questionnaire adaptation. In this study, causes of low back pain of 187 outpatients and inpatients (99 urban patients and 88 rural patients) were analyzed. All patients underwent simplified Chinese version of Roland-Morris disability questionnaire (SC-RMDQ), simplified Chinese Oswestry disability index (SCODI) and visual analogue scale (VAS). Reliability was tested using reproducibility (intraclass coefficient of correlation--ICC) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha). Validity was tested using Pearson correlation analysis.


RESULTS
The leading causes for low back pain were sedentariness (38.4%) and vibration (18.1%) in urban patients and waist bending (48.9%) and spraining (25%) in rural patients. Although causes of low back pain in the two groups of population were completely different, SCRMDQ had high internal consistency (Cronbach's α value of 0.874 in urban patients and 0.883 in rural patients) and good reproducibility (ICC value of .952 in urban patients and 0.949 in rural patients, P<0.01). SCRMDQ also showed significant correlation with Simplified Chinese version of Oswestry disability index (SCODI) and visual analogue scale (VAS) in rural areas (SCRMDQ-SCODI r = 0.841; SCRMDQ-VAS: r = 0.685, P<0.01) and in urban areas (SCRMDQ-SCODI: r = 0.818, P<0.01; SCRMDQ-VAS: r = 0.666, P<0.01).


CONCLUSIONS
Although causes of low back pain are completely different in rural and urban patients, SCRMDQ has a good reliability and validity, which is a reliable clinical method to evaluate disability of rural and urban patients.
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, The Affiliated Changhai Hospital of the Second Military Medical University, Shanghai, China.
Honglei
H
Yi
Xinran
X
Ji
Xianzhao
X
Wei
Ziqiang
Z
Chen
Xinhui
X
Wang
Xiaodong
X
Zhu
Wei
W
Zhang
Jiayu
J
Chen
Diqing
D
Zhang
Ming
M
Li
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D002681:China / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000453:epidemiology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010147:Pain Measurement; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D014505:Urban Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D055815:Young Adult