Article

OBJECTIVE: To determine the psychometric properties of the 23-item version of the
Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ-23) and to quantify their stability
across 2 cultures/languages and 2 types of care-settings. METHODS: Rasch analysis
of data from 1,000 patients with low back pain from primary care (UK and Denmark)
and secondary care (Denmark). RESULTS: The RMDQ-23 is unidimensional if local
item dependency issues are accommodated, but contains several misfitting or
overdiscriminating items, some poor targeting of items, and the scoring of 4-5
items is differentially affected by common clinical characteristics (such as age,
gender, pain intensity, pain duration and care setting), depending on the
country. CONCLUSION: As similar results have been found for the RMDQ-24, we
believe it is timely to reconsider whether: (i) the RMDQ should be reconstructed
using an item-response theory-based approach that includes consideration of new
items and response options; or (ii) the use of alternative questionnaires should
be recommended, such as the Oswestry Disability Index, that have shown evidence
of fitting the Rasch model; or (iii) a completely new condition-specific
questionnaire should be developed, perhaps utilizing a computerized adaptive
testing platform.

Langue : ANGLAIS