Development of the Young Disability Questionnaire (spine) for children with spinal pain: field testing in Danish school children

OBJECTIVE: The objective of this study was to finalise the development of the Young Disability Questionnaire (YDQ-spine) to measure the consequences of neck, midback and low back pain, relevant for schoolchildren aged 9–12 years. DESIGN: A cross-sectional field test of the YDQ-spine was carried out. SETTING: Danish primary schools. PARTICIPANTS: Children aged 9–12 years from all Danish schools were invited to complete the questionnaire. METHODS: Eight hundred and seventy-three schools were invited to participate. Consenting schools received information material, instructions and a link to an electronic version of the prefinal YDQ-spine. Local teachers distributed the electronic YDQ-spine to children aged 9–12 years. Descriptive statistics and item characteristics were carried out. Item reduction was performed using partial interitem correlations (scrutinising correlations>0.3) and factor analyses (items loading>0.3 were retained) to eliminate redundant items and to obtain insight into the structure of the questionnaire. RESULTS: A total of 768 children from 20 schools answered of the questionnaire and 280 fulfilled the inclusion criteria of having back and/or neck pain (36%). Multisite pain was reported by 38%. Partial interitem correlations and factor analyses resulted in elimination of four items which were considered redundant leaving 24 items in the final YDQ-spine with an optional section on what matters most to the child. The factor analyses showed a two-factor structure with a physical component (13 items) and a psychosocial component (10 items) in addition to one standalone item (sleep). CONCLUSION: The YDQ-spine is a novel questionnaire with satisfactory content validity measuring physical and psychosocial components (including sleep disturbances) of spinal pain in children aged 9–12 years. It also offers an optional section on what matters most to the child allowing targeted care in clinical practice.