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Validity of The Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale For Measuring Disability Associated With Chronic, Non-Traumatic Neck Pain
Validity of The Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale For Measuring Disability Associated With Chronic, Non-Traumatic Neck Pain
Validity of The Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale For Measuring Disability Associated With Chronic, Non-Traumatic Neck Pain
Manual Therapy
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/math
Original Article
Validity of the Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale
for measuring disability associated with chronic, non-traumatic neck pain
Mark Chan Ci Ena, Dean A. Clairb, Stephen J. Edmondstonc,*
a
Physiotherapy Department, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore
b
Physiotherapy Department, Osborne Park Hospital, WA, Australia
c
School of Physiotherapy, Curtin University of Technology, GPO Box U1987, Perth, WA 6845, Australia
articleinfo abstract
Article history: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the construct and content validity of the Neck Disability Index
Received 17 January 2008 (NDI) and the Neck Pain and Disability Scale (NPAD) in patients with chronic, non-traumatic neck pain.
Received in revised form 13 May 2008 Twenty patients (mean age 64.5 years) completed a patient-specific questionnaire, the Problem Elic-
Accepted 27 July 2008
itation Technique (PET), followed by the NDI and NPAD. Content validity was assessed by comparing the
items of the NDI and NPAD with problems identified from the PET. Construct validity of the fixed-item
Keywords: questionnaires was examined by establishing the correlation with each other, and with the PET score.
Neck pain
Eleven common problems were identified by patients through the PET, of which six were included in the
Disability
NDI and seven included in the NPAD. The NDI and NPAD scores were strongly correlated ( r 0.86,
Outcome assessment
Questionnaires p < 0.01), while the correlation between the PET and the fixed-item questionnaires was moderate (NDI:
r 0.62, p < 0.01; NPAD: r 0.71, p < 0.01). Both the NDI and the NPAD include most of the functional
problems common to this patient group, and display good content validity. The PET is better able to
evaluate the problems specific to the individual patient and is therefore measuring a somewhat different
construct to the fixed-item questionnaires.
2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1356-689X/$ - see front matter 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.math.2008.07.005
Please cite this article in press as: Chan Ci En M et al., Validity of the Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale for measuring
disability associated with chronic, non-traumatic neck pain, Manual Therapy (2008), doi:10.1016/j.math.2008.07.005
ARTICLE IN PRESS
determining the association between the questionnaire scores and Role activity 17 (85.0) 53 12 6.8
Emotional 15 (75.0) 19 4 7.1
the PET score, using Pearsons correlation coefficients. The corre-
Sleep 18 (90.0) 23 2 7.1
lation between the NDI and NPAD scores was also examined. Mobility 18 (90.0) 30 5 6.8
Sport and 6 (30.0) 6 1 6.5
3. Results leisure
Social activity 10 (50.0) 10 3 6.9
Personal care 8 (40.0) 10 2 6.5
Twenty subjects (7 males, 13 females) with a mean age of 64.5 Communication 10 (50.0) 11 3 6.9
years (SD 12.8) were recruited over a three-month period. The Symptoms 15 (75.0) 19 3 7.4
mean symptom duration was 115.6 months (SD 119.5). The Table shows the number of problems, the number of patients who identified
characteristics of the study population are summarised in Table 1. problems within each dimension, and the mean severity of problems per dimension.
The average pain intensity over the week prior to the interview was
5.2 (SD 1.9). The mean NDI and NPAD scores were 33.1 (SD 17.2)
and 47.7 (SD 23.7), respectively. The mean PET score was 6.6 severity scores were found in depression (9.3), cooking (8.3), and
(SD 1.7). The PET identified an average of 9.2 problems per patient sitting upright (8.0). The individual problems that were ranked
(SD 3.7). most important by the subjects were driving (30.0%), sleep
disturbance (30.0%) and frustration (20.0%). Of the 11 problems
3.1. Content validity identified by most subjects, 6 of these are included in the NDI and 7 are
included in the NPAD (Table 4).
Table 2 presents the disability profile of the study population
according to the PET dimensions. Over 80% of the patients identi- 3.2. Construct validity
fied one or more problems within the dimensions of sleep (90.0%),
mobility (90.0%) and role activity (85.0%). There were 23, 30 and 53 The PET was moderately correlated with the NDI (r 0.62,
individual problems identified within these three dimensions, p < 0.01) and NPAD (r 0.71, p < 0.01). There was a stronger
respectively. More than half of the subjects identified problems correlation between the NDI and NPAD (r 0.86, p < 0.01). The
within the dimensions of emotion (75.0%) and symptoms (75.0%).
The individual patient problems identified by the PET and their Table 3
mean severity are presented in Table 3. Only problems identified by Problems identified by patients using the PET, and the mean severity and ranking of
two or more patients are presented. Of the individual problems importance
identified by the PET, sleep disturbance had the highest prevalence Dimension Problem Number Mean Number of
(75.0%). More than half of the subjects identified frustration of subjects (SD) subjects
(%) severity ranking problem
(65.0%), driving (60.0%) and lifting (60.0%). Other common prob-
(0-10) as most important
lems (more than 33%) were looking into cupboards (45.0%), (%)
gardening (40.0%), headaches (40.0%), housework (35.0%), working Role Activity Looking into cupboards 9 (45) 5.3 0 (0)
overhead (35.0%), and general exercise (35.0%). The highest mean Gardening 8 (40) 6.6 0
Housework 7 (35) 7.7 3 (15)
Working overhead 7 (35) 6.6 0
Table 1 Hanging up washing 6 (30) 7.8 2 (10)
Demographic and clinical characteristics of the study population (n 20) Work for wages 4 (20) 6.5 3 (15)
Age (years) Vacuuming 4 (20) 7.0 1 (5)
Mean 64.5 Cooking 4 (20) 8.3 1 (5)
SD 12.8 Emotional Frustration 13 (65) 6.5 4 (25)
Range 22.0-83.0 Depression 4 (20) 9.3 0
Gender (%) Sleep Affected sleep 15 (75) 7.1 6 (30)
Male 7 (35.0) Fatigue throughout day 8 (40) 7.1 0
Female 13 (65.0)
Mobility Driving 12 (60) 6.2 6 (30)
Symptom duration (%) Lifting 12 (60) 7.6 2 (10)
3-6 months 3 (15.0) Crossing the road 3 (15) 7.0 1 (5)
6-12 months 1 (5.0)
12-24 months 3 (15.0) Social Socialising with friends 6 (30) 6.5 0
>24 months 13 (65.0) Activities
Table 4 construction of the NDI and NPAD, some questionnaires have been
Comparison of commonly identified problems elicited by the PET with items in NDI developed with little or no input from patients with neck pain
and NPAD
(Pietrobon et al., 2002). Establishing the validity of a questionnaire is
Identified problem Item included in NDI Item included in NPAD important to ensure that it reflects the nature and spectrum of the
Affected sleep Yes Yes problems experienced by the majority of patients. The validity of the
Frustration Yes NDI and NPAD has been investigated in patients with
Driving Yes Yes
whiplash-related neck pain (Goolkasian et al., 2002; Hoving et al.,
Lifting Yes
Looking into cupboards Yes 2003), but this is the first study to specifically examine the validity of
Gardening two commonly used disability questionnaires in an older cohort of
Headaches Yes patients with chronic, non-traumatic neck pain.
Fatigue throughout day The PET simulates clinical practice by asking patients to identify
Housework Yes Yes
Working overhead Yes
physical, emotional and cognitive problems specific to their neck
pain disorder. It serves to elicit the problems specific to each
patient, thereby reducing the noise created when items not rele-
association between the three questionnaires is presented graphi- vant to the patient are included (Buchbinder et al., 1995; Jolles et al.,
cally in Fig. 1. 2005). The most commonly reported functional problems in the
present study were disturbed sleep, driving, and lifting, while
4. Discussion frustration was the most common emotional problem. In patients
with whiplash, who were significantly younger than the patients in
In the development of neck pain questionnaires, assumptions the current study, the most common functional problems identified
were made as to the nature of the functional limitations associated were work for wages, fatigue during the day, participation in sports,
with neck pain. However, patient input is considered paramount in and driving, while the most common emotional problem was
the development and evaluation of an outcome measure (Guyatt depression (Hoving et al., 2003). Driving or riding in a car was the
et al., 1993). While there was some input from patients in the only common functional problem experienced by both patient
80 100
r = 0.86 r = 0.71
80
60
60
40
40
20
20
0 0
0 20 40 60 80 100 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
NPAD Score PET Score
80
r = 0.62
60
40
20
0
3 4 5 6 7 8 9
PET Score
Fig. 1. Scatter plots showing the relationships between total scores for the NDI, NPAD and PET questionnaires.
Please cite this article in press as: Chan Ci En M et al., Validity of the Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale for measuring
disability associated with chronic, non-traumatic neck pain, Manual Therapy (2008), doi:10.1016/j.math.2008.07.005
NPAD Score
NDI Score
NDI Score
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Please cite this article in press as: Chan Ci En M et al., Validity of the Neck Disability Index and Neck Pain and Disability Scale for measuring
disability associated with chronic, non-traumatic neck pain, Manual Therapy (2008), doi:10.1016/j.math.2008.07.005