Back Pain and Body Posture Evaluation Instrument for Adults: Expansion and Reproducibility

Abstract

Background: The BackPEI questionnaire was developed and validated just exclusively to evaluate children.

Aims: To propose, validate, and test the reproducibility of an expanded version of the Back Pain and Body Posture Evaluation Instrument (BackPEI), originally designed to assess back pain in school-aged children, for use with adults.

Design: Validation Study.

Methods: Five questions from the original BackPEI were replaced, resulting in the revised instrument (BackPEI-A) containing 20 questions. Three experts checked the content validity of the revised instrument, and the reproducibility was tested by trialing the questionnaire with 154 adults.

Results: The reproducibility data for the questions regarding pain intensity, analyzed using the Wilcoxon test and intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC), indicated that (a) there was no difference between the medians and (b) the answers were highly correlated, both for lower back (p = .574) (ICC = 0.908) and cervical (p = .968) (ICC = 0.865) pain. The reproducibility data for the remaining questions analyzed using the κ coefficient were classified as moderate (0.4 < κ ≤ 0.6) or very good (κ > 0.8).

Conclusion: The BackPEI-A is a reproducible, valid, and reliable instrument for use in the evaluation of back and neck pain and their associated risk factors. The instrument also facilitates the evaluation of postural habits in activities of daily living in adults.