title: Assessing self-perception in patients with chronic low back pain: development of a back-specific body-perception questionnaire.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  There is considerable interest in the role that disturbance of body-perception may play in long standing pain problems such as chronic low back pain (CLBP), both as a contributor to the clinical condition and as a potential target for treatment. In some chronic pain conditions body-perception has been investigated using self-report questionnaires. There is currently no questionnaire for assessing body-perception in people with CLBP.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To describe the development of a back-specific body-perception questionnaire and examine the psychometrics of this new scale.
  
  
  METHODS
  Based on available evidence a back-specific body-perception questionnaire was developed. Fifty-one people with CLBP and an equal number of healthy controls completed the questionnaire; a subset of the patient population completed the questionnaire again one-week later. Scale-consistency and test-retest reliability were investigated on the patient sample. Validity was investigated by comparing responses between patients and controls as well as exploring the relationship between the questionnaire and important clinical characteristics.
  
  
  RESULTS
  All but one of the patients endorsed items on the questionnaire, which suggests that distorted body-perception may exist in this population. The internal-consistency and test-retest reliability of the scale appear acceptable. The discriminative validity of the questionnaire is supported by the marked differences in the questionnaire responses between patients and healthy controls and the construct validity by the significant association between the questionnaire score and important clinical variables.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Symptoms of body-perception distortion were endorsed by most CLBP patients, while these symptoms are very infrequent amongst healthy controls. Our results suggest the questionnaire has reasonable psychometric properties.
authors.affiliation: The School of Physiotherapy, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, WA, Australia.
authors.forename: Benedict Martin
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Wand
authors.affiliation: Physiotherapy Department, Tom Price Hospital, Tom Price, WA, Australia.
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: James
authors.affiliation: School of Physiotherapy, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
authors.forename: Sam
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Abbaszadeh
authors.affiliation: The School of Physiotherapy, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, WA, Australia.
authors.forename: Pamela Jane
authors.initials: PJ
authors.lastname: George
authors.affiliation: The School of Physiotherapy, The University of Notre Dame Australia, Fremantle, WA, Australia.
authors.forename: Pamela Margaret
authors.initials: PM
authors.lastname: Formby
authors.affiliation: School of Physiotherapy, Curtin University, Perth, WA, Australia.
authors.forename: Anne Julia
authors.initials: AJ
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research in Rehabilitation, School of Health Sciences and Social Care, Brunel University, Uxbridge, UK.
authors.forename: Neil Edward
authors.initials: NE
authors.lastname: O'Connell
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001828:Body Image / Q000523:psychology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D017116:Low Back Pain / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012649:Self Concept; D057566:Self Report; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: Body image; low back pain; neuronal plasticity; reliability; validity