Reliability and validity of simplified Chinese version of Roland-Morris disability questionnaire for evaluating urban and rural patients with low back pain
CHEN Kai
WEI Xianzhao
ZHAI Xiao
WU Dajiang
BAI Yushu
ZHU Xiaodong
LI Ming
Abstract：Objective To explore the application value of simplified Chinese version of Roland-Morris disability questionnaire (SC-RMDQ) in functional evaluation for urban and rural patients with low back pain (LBP). Methods From April 2009 to April 2011, 187 LBP patients including 99 urban and 88 rural patients were evaluated by SC-RMDQ, simplified Chinese Oswestry disability index (SC-ODI) and visual analogue scale (VAS). Major causes of LBP were recorded. Reliability was tested by internal consistency (Cronbach's α) and reproducibility (intraclass coefficient of correlation, ICC) analysis; Validity was tested by Pearson correlation analysis. Results The leading causes for LBP were waist bending (49%) and spraining (25%) in rural patients, and sedentariness (39%) and vibration (18%) in urban patients. SC-RMDQ had high internal consistency (Cronbach's α value of 0.883 in rural patients and 0.874 in urban patients) and good reproducibility (ICC value of 0.952 in rural patients and 0.949 in urban patients). SC-RMDQ also showed significant correlation with SC-ODI and VAS in rural areas (SC-RMDQ/SC-ODI: r = 0.841; SC-RMDQ/VAS: r = 0.685, P <0.05) and in urban areas (SC-RMDQ/SC-ODI: r = 0.818, P <0.05; SC-RMDQ/VAS: r = 0.666, P <0.05). Conclusions Although the major causes of LBP are significantly different between rural and urban patients, SC-RMDQ has good reliability and validity, which is a suitable method to evaluate disability of rural and urban LBP patients.
Keywords：Back painQuestionnairesRoland-Morris disability questionnaireSimplified Chinese versionOswestry disability indexVisual analogue scaleRural populationUrban populationDisability evaluation
Publication Date：2013-01-01
Online Publishing Date：2025-08-15(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：6( 335-340 )