Original articlePsychometric Properties of the Neck Disability Index and Numeric Pain Rating Scale in Patients With Mechanical Neck Pain
Section snippets
Methods
We collected data on consecutive patients presenting to 1 of 5 outpatient orthopedic physical therapy (PT) clinics (Rehabilitation Services of Concord Hospital, Concord, NH; Newton-Wellesley Hospital, Boston, MA; Centennial Physical Therapy, Colorado Springs, CO; Groves Physical Therapy, St Paul, MN; Sharp HealthCare, San Diego, CA) between July 2004 and July 2006 with a primary report of neck pain from 2 clinical trials that were included in the analysis.17, 18 Both studies included identical
Results
Of the 209 consecutive patients with neck pain screened for eligibility, 138 patients satisfied inclusion and exclusion criteria and agreed to participate (mean, 42.5±11.9y). Of the 71 patients that were not included, 21 had a recent history of whiplash, 13 had signs of nerve root compression, 12 presented with contraindications to the interventions, 8 had prior surgery to the cervical or thoracic spine, 2 had signs of central nervous system involvement, 1 had insufficient English skills to
Discussion
It is essential for clinicians to have an understanding of the psychometric properties of measures, including reliability and responsiveness. Instruments should exhibit acceptable reliability and validity prior to being used to guide clinical decision-making. To determine the reliability and validity of self-report measures, it is useful to compare them with a construct that indicates when a true change has occurred.34 Frequently this construct of true change is a patient global rating of
Conclusions
The results of our study indicate that both the NDI and NRS exhibit fair to moderate test-retest reliability. Both instruments also showed adequate responsiveness in this patient population. However, the MDC required to be certain that the change in scores has surpassed a level that could be attibuted to measurement error for the NDI was twice that which has previously been reported in the literature.9, 16 This warrants further investigation. The responsiveness, as well as the MDC and MCID, for
Acknowledgment
None of the funding organizations played any role in the design, conduct, or reporting of the study or in the decision to submit the study for publication.
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Supported by the Orthopaedic Section of the American Physical Therapy Association, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Manual Physical Therapists, and Steens Physical USA.
No commercial party having a direct financial interest in the results of the research supporting this article has or will confer a benefit upon the author(s) or upon any organization with which the author(s) is/are associated.