Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Korean version of the Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire for use in low back pain.

OBJECTIVE: The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) is a reliable tool for evaluating disability in patients with back pain, but no Korean version has been published and validated. We developed a cross-culturally adapted Korean version of the RMDQ (RMDQ-K) and validated its use for assessing disability in Korean patients with low back pain.

METHODS: Two hundred thirty-one patients with low back pain were assessed using the RMDQ-K, visual analog scale (VAS) during rest and activity, and the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI). The results of 40 patients were used to evaluate the test-retest reliability. The correlations of the RMDQ-K with the VAS and ODI were used to assess validity.

RESULTS: The reliability of the RMDQ-K estimated using the internal consistency reached a Cronbach's alpha of 0.893. Test-retest trials showed a high intraclass correlation coefficient of 0.837 (95% CI 0.833-0.953). The RMDQ-K was significantly correlated with the ODI (r=0.738) and VAS during rest (r=0.450) and activity (r=0.412).

CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that the RMDQ-K is a reliable, valid instrument for measuring of disability in Korean patients with low back pain.