The Development and Validation of a Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire – LKQ

Abstract

OBJECTIVE:The objective of this study was to develop and validate a questionnaire on specific knowledge about low back pain entitled “The Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire”.INTRODUCTION:There is a need for instruments to assess patient knowledge regarding chronic illness. Such methods can contribute to the education of patients.METHODS:The Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire was developed through five focus groups. The questionnaire was distributed to 50 patients to assess their comprehension of the terms. To assess the reproducibility, 20 patients were surveyed by two different interviewers on the same day and twice by a single interviewer with a one-to-two week interval. For the construct validation, the Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire was given to 20 healthcare professionals with knowledge on low back pain and 20 patients to determine whether the questionnaire would discriminate between the two different populations. To assess the sensitivity of the questionnaire to changes in the knowledge level of the patients, it was given to 60 patients who were randomly assigned to the Intervention Group and the Control Group. The Intervention Group answered the questionnaire both before and after attending a chronic back pain educational program (back school), whereas the Control Group answered the questionnaire twice with an interval of one month and no educational intervention.RESULTS:The focus groups generated a questionnaire with 16 items. The Spearman’s correlation coefficient and the intra-class correlation coefficients ranged from 0.61 to 0.95 in the assessments of the intra-observer and inter-observer reproducibility (p< 0.01). In the construct validation, the healthcare professionals and patients showed statistically different scores (p< 0.001). In the phase regarding the sensitivity to change, the Intervention Group exhibited a significant increase in their specific knowledge over the Control Group (p< 0.001).CONCLUSION:The Low Back Pain Knowledge Questionnaire was validated and proved to be reproducible, valid and sensitive to changes in patient knowledge.

Development and psychometric evaluation of a health questionnaire on back care knowledge in daily life physical activities for adolescent students

“…Our questionnaire has not got more than one-dimensional structure like in Maciel et al's [19] and Méndez and Gómez-Conesa's [17] studies. Results from ICC, SEM and Bland-Altman limits revealed good behaviour of the scores.…”

“…Previously, Méndez and Gómez-Conesa [17] developed a questionnaire to assess back care knowledge in students from 9 to 12 years old and Maciel et al [19] developed another questionnaire to assess the disease-specific knowledge among patients with non-specific low back pain. However, HEBACAKNOW is the only questionnaire validated by professionals of healthcare and education, as well as by young healthy secondary students.…”

“…This is a possible effect of learning the correct answers. Maciels' study [19] analyzed the reproducibility of knowledge differences between patients and professionals but he did not analyze the validity of the knowledge included in his questionnaire.…”

“…The resulting 24 multiple choice items were associated with one of the following categories according to conceptual knowledge: topographical-anatomical knowledge (items 1, 2, 3 and 6); functional-anatomical knowledge (items 4, 5 and 7); habits in standing posture (items 8-10); or seated (items 11-13); or lying (items 23 and 24); habits in carrying heavy objects in a backpack (items 14-18); and how to move heavy loads (items [19][20][21][22]. The score for each item was 0 (wrong option) or 1 (correct option).…”

“…Moreover, none of them have developed a complete process to test the psychometric properties of the health measuring instruments used [18]. There is only one study [19] which includes a suitable validity and reliability analysis, even though the target population was adults with pathologies. Moreover, as the questionnaire used in that study was addressed to patients, it included technical terminology and questions about pain, which are not familiar to young people.…”