Study design. This is a descriptive study with repeated measurements taken initially, 2 days, and 4 weeks later. Validation of a translated, culturally adapted outcome measure; the Oswestry disability index.Objectives. To translate and culturally adapt the Oswestry disability index into Arabic, to validate its use for assessing disability in Arabic-speaking patients with low back pain, and to explore the factor structure of the Arabic Oswestry and compare it with the English version.Summary of background data. The Oswestry disability index is known to be a reliable, valid and responsive measure for assessing disability in patients with low back pain. To date, no Arabic version of the Oswestry has been validated.Methods. Independent forward and backward translation of the English Oswestry disability index into Arabic by four professional bilingual translators. A prefinal version of the Arabic Oswestry disability index was produced by a review committee consisting of the researcher, the translators and a physiotherapist. The comprehensibility and reproducibility of the prefinal version of Arabic Oswestry disability index was tested with a 12-year-old boy, and was also tested in 20 patients with low back pain in a pilot study. The ten disability items on the Arabic Oswestry disability index were extensively studied using standard methods such as test-retest reliability, internal consistency, item-total correlations, and factor analysis. The responsiveness of the Arabic Oswestry disability index was also assessed by calculation the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve, the Guyatt's responsiveness index and the statistical and clinical meaningful change of the Arabic Oswestry disability index. Patients completed the Oswestry disability index on their initial evaluation, 2 clays, and 4 weeks later. Patients and physiotherapist completed a global rating of change scale at 2 days and 4 weeks follow-up.Results. There was some difficulty in translating the responses of some items. The committee changed the third response in the eight item. 'Dancing' was replaced with 'Praying'. A total of 90 patients with low back pain completed the battery of forms throughout the study. The Arabic Oswestry disability index demonstrated a high level of test-retest reliability ICC = 0.97, and 0.93 over 2-day and 4-week intervals respectively. The Arabic Oswestry disability index reached a Cronbach's alpha of 0.85. Item-total correlations on the total score of the Arabic Oswestry disability index were high in general. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)

Aljedi, S. (2004). Cross-cultural adaptation of the Oswestry low back pain disability index for Arabic-speaking patients, University of Pittsburgh. Ph.D.: 105 p-105 p.

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