Lbp Assessment Tool

All selected items are included in assessment tools that are used frequently with LBP patients. Five items were derived from SF-12 41 which is a generic assessment tool, 2 items were derived from the BPI 38, a clinical pain tool, and one item was derived from ODI 41, a LBP functional disability assessment tool. However, there is no available LBP-specific HRQOL assessment tool; the tool developed in this study is considered to be a LBP-specific tool. Having a specific assessment tool (i.e. LBP-HRQOL) is likely to be more sensitive than generic ones for specific issues experienced by patients 31,53. As it also assesses the most important area in LBP, it gives precise information about a patient’s state. In addition, it can be quickly scored and easily used in clinics 54.
The reliability and validity of using only one item to assess general health perception is supported by the literature 23,24. In addition, a systematic review showed good reliability and validity of using a single item to assess different HRQOL domains: pain intensity, fatigue, sleep, depression, and anxiety 27. Furthermore, two studies supported the validity of using a single item to assess physical activity 22,25. The literature showed that using this single item approach could be preferable for patients regardless of the disease population since patients do not have to spend much time and require less cognitive effort to answer the questions 27,30. In this study, the LBP-HRQOL items and total score had a moderate correlation with similar constructs supporting the good construct validity of the