Validation of back pain questionnaire in a popoulation of New Zealand adolescents

Abstract

This study aimed to examine the content, convergent and discriminant validity of the Adolescent Back Pain Questionnaire (ABPQ) which was developed to gather lifestyle choices information regarding New Zealand (NZ) teenagers’ experience of low back pain (LBP). Twenty volunteers (mean age 16.41, SD 1.66 years) were recruited from a secondary school, private physiotherapy clinics and a local medical centre. Of these, 15 participants (mean age 15.50, SD1.59 years) had been diagnosed and/or had presented to physiotherapy with LBP and the remaining five participants (mean age 15.84, SD 0.93 years) had no history of LBP. All participants completed both the on-line ABPQ and the Nordic Back Pain Questionnaire (NBPQ), applied in random order, followed by an individual face-to-face interview regarding their preferences and opinions about the questionnaires. The results showed that responses to the ABPQ demonstrated convergent and discriminant validity as a self-report measure across four domains of LBP namely: life-time LBP prevalence, pain intensity, care seeking, and aetiology of LBP. Further, the language and comprehension contained in the ABPQ was found to be acceptable to NZ adolescents and the ABPQ clearly discriminated between those with, and those without, LBP; thereby providing a basis for the use of the instrument when screening for this condition in the NZ adolescent population.