Linguistic Reliability & Validity of Urdu Version of Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire in Patients with Chronic Non-Specific Low Back Pain

Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) is a self-administered tool that produces reliable measurements for drawing implications about disability. Urdu form of the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (U-RMDQ) is considered apprehensive for the population of Pakistan. Furthermore, the Urdu version of this tool is consistent in reliability, validity & content continuity with the English original version. Objective: The aims of the current study were to assess the reliability, validity & utility of the Urdu form of the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) in participants with chronic nonspecific low back pain. Methods: This study design was qualitative tool validation. The sampling technique employed was non-random convenience sampling with 100 individuals including both females and males within the age of 20 years to 70 years. Out of 100, 25 were healthy & 75 were patients Measurements were taken at baseline followed by another measurement after 24 hours. The study was completed in three stages; content validity was evaluated through the content validity index in the first stage, a pilot study was run to evaluate reliability & validity in the second stage followed by an evaluation of patients presenting with low back pain using Urdu version of (U-RMDQ) in the third stage. Data were collected through the Urdu version of the (U-RMDQ). Afterward, IBM SPSS version 25.0 was used to analyze the data. Results: -retest reliability depicted with Intra-class Correlation Coefficient was 0.684 for healthy individuals while 0.998 for participants with non-specific chronic LBP. The outcomes clearly express the tool reliability for the assessment of disability in patients with nonspecific chronic low back pain. An Independent t-test was employed to check the different validity, results showed the significant differences in means of all variables between both groups thereby producing <.05 two-tailed significance of all variables. After factor analysis of samples of 100 patients, Kaiser-Meyer Olkin (KMO) was 0.872 & p-value <0.05 showed the significance of the test. Five variables in (U-RMDQ) were responsible for variance in data. Conclusion: The study concluded the Urdu version of the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire is a valid and reliable instrument to evaluate disability associated with chronic non-specific low back pain.