Development, Validation, Reliability And Psychometric Testing Of Comprehensive Functional And Psychological Assessment Scale In Patients With Chronic Low Back Pain.

Background: Low Back Pain (LBP) ranks as one of the most prevalent musculoskeletal conditions around the world. The average lifetime prevalence of LBP in Northern-India was reported to be 57%, with women (65%) having a significantly greater prevalence than men (47%). There is limited literature available on assessing the combined impact on functional disability and psychological status in patients with chronic LBP patients in Northern India. The aim of the study is to validate and test all the psychometric properties of Comprehensive Assessment scale for patients with chronic LBP in northern India.

Study Design: A cross-sectional study

Methods: The study will be conducted in 3 phases: 1) development phase, 2) validation phase, 3) testing psychometric properties. For the formation of domains and framing a pre-final draft for the scale development, 7-8 patients having chronic LBP from the past year will be interviewed, followed by related literature searches and expert panel opinions.  The draft will be validated in terms of content validity via the Delphi survey method, construct validity via confirmatory factor analysis, and concurrent validity will be analysed by correlating the comprehensive assessment scale with other valid questionnaire. The data will be collected from patients to test the final draft of the comprehensive assessment scale for its psychometric properties.

Statistical analysis will be done using IBM SPSS software (version 26). The data collected from the patients will be analysed for its absolute and relative reliability and other psychometric properties like sensitivity, specificity, Small-Worthwhile Change, Minimal Detectable Change, Standard Error Mean and Coefficient of Variation.