Background & Aims
Low back pain (LBP) is an increasingly critical issue in Vietnam; a national study found that 27.75% of participants experienced back pain, making it the second-highest among various pain locations. This mirrors the global trend of LBP being a significant public health burden and a leading cause of work-related disability challenges. Due to distinct occupational roles work positions, and heavy lifting practices in Vietnam, the nature and risk factors of LBP differ from Western countries.
Assessing disability is crucial for patients with LBP; however, there is currently no published Vietnamese version of a disability assessment tool. This study addresses a vital aspect of low back pain treatment and care by focusing on the assessment of disability in LBP patients. The study aims of this study were to develop a Vietnamese version of the ODI and to determine the validity and reliability of this version across different conditions in LBP patients.
Methods
The ODI-V questionnaire was developed involving forward-backward translation, final review by an expert committee and test of the prefinal version to establish as better as possible proper correspondence with the original English latest version (2.1b). Psychometric testing included factor analysis, reliability by internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha ) and test-retest repeatability (Intraclass Coefficient Correlation), concurrent validity by comparing the ODI-V to Visual Analogue Scale, (Pearson correlation)
Results
The process of achieving a final Vietnamese version of the ODI took a 2-month period. The questionnaire was administered to 100 patients (60% female, ODI score: 58% moderate disability), demonstrating satisfactory acceptability. Factor analysis revealed a 2- factors structure explaining 71.645% of the variance. The questionnaire exhibited high internal consistency (0.921), with corrected item total correlation considered adequate (ITC all items >0.30), and moderate test-retest reliability (ICC=0.727). Concurrent validity was confirmed by a high correlation with the Visual Analogue Scale (r = 0.73, P < 0.001).
Conclusions
The results of this study indicate that the translated Vietnamese versions of the ODI are reliable and valid instruments for the measurement of disability among Vietnam patients with LBP problems.
References
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