The Young Disability Questionnaire-Spine: item development, pilot testing and conceptualisation of a questionnaire to measure consequences of spinal pain in children

OBJECTIVE: The objective of the present study was to develop a questionnaire to measure the consequences of neck, midback and low back pain, relevant for schoolchildren aged 9–12 years. DESIGN: The development of the questionnaire was carried out in three phases: (1) generation of items, (2) pilot testing and (3) conceptualisation. SETTING: Danish primary schools. PARTICIPANTS: Children aged 9–12 years from a local school were invited for completion of questionnaires and subsequent interviews. METHODS: In phase 1 an extensive literature search identified items from existing questionnaires measuring musculoskeletal disability in children. These were added to items from a previously conducted qualitative study and constituted the basis for the new questionnaire. In phase 2 two consecutive pilot tests were performed to test for comprehension and feasibility of the questionnaire. Phase 3 consisted of a categorisation of the newly developed items according to the WHO’s International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health (ICF). RESULTS: The combination of the previously conducted qualitative study and the literature review resulted in an item pool of 35 items. Through the process of item formulation and pilot testing, these were reduced to 28 items in the final questionnaire, which represented all categories in the ICF model. The qualitative study identified codes giving relative weight to four important domains. These were not included in any of the existing questionnaires but were added to the new questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: We developed the first version of a questionnaire to measure the consequences of back or neck pain in children. The process showed the importance of combining research methods, each adding important contributions to the final product. Subsequent work will finalise the questionnaire, allowing various options for use of the questionnaire.