How Well Do Seven Self-Report Measures Represent Underlying Back Pain Impact?
Ron D Hays, Patricia M Herman, Nabeel Qureshi and 2 others
PMID 37625935WHAT IT FOUND
Common back pain questionnaires mostly measured the same overall impact.
If time is short, a brief PEG or disability score appeared to capture that impact well. This is about measurement, not treatment.
Key findings
01In 1874 adults with back pain, correlations among seven pain impact measures ranged from 0.61 to 0.81, and a model with one underlying pain impact factor fit well (CFI 0.98, RMSEA 0.06).
02Each measure loaded strongly on the common pain impact factor, with standardized loadings from 0.78 to 0.87; the ISS had the highest loading and the RMDQ the lowest.
03Internal consistency reliability estimates for the seven measures ranged from 0.71 for the OMPQ to 0.92 for the GCPS disability score.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for PTs
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What it does not show
The sample came from Amazon Mechanical Turk workers, who may differ from adults with back pain seen in clinics. It was a single cross-sectional self-report sample, so it cannot show how measures predict outcomes or whether they improve care. The sample was not fully representative; non-Hispanic Black adults were 7%, compared with 12% estimated for the general US population. The OMPQ had lower internal consistency (0.71), and some of its items did not correlate in the expected direction, so it may not form one simple score.
Declared interests
The supplied metadata lists NIH extramural research support. No other funding or conflict-of-interest declaration is shown.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that these measures are proven to guide better treatment or that one measure is clinically superior. The study only tested associations among self-report scores in an online sample.