Low Back Pain Prevalence

The visual analogue scale or visual analog scale (VAS) is a psychometric response scale which can be used in questionnaires. It is a measurement instrument for subjective characteristics or attitudes that cannot be directly measured. When responding to a VAS item, respondents specify their level of agreement to a statement by indicating a position along a continuous line between two end-points. VAS is the most common pain scale.

We created an individual patient examination form, in which we could ask our subjects about their lifestyle habits and about their low back pain.

The Oswestry Disability Index (also known as the Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire) is an extremely important tool that researchers and disability evaluators use to measure a patient's permanent functional disability. The test is considered the 'gold standard' of low back functional outcome tools.

The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire[1] is designed to assess self-rated physical disability caused by low back pain. The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire is most sensitive for patients with mild to moderate disability due to acute, sub-acute or chronic low back pain.

The Quebec back pain disability scale is a condition-specific questionnaire developed to measure the level of functional disability for patients with low back pain (LBP) is a condition-specific questionnaire developed to measure the level of functional disability for patients with low back pain (LBP). The original purpose of the questionnaire is to take into account the functional limitations related to pain, to monitor the progress of individual patients and to compare the evolution of LBP subjects incorporated in rehabilitation programs.

SF-36 is a set of generic, coherent, and easily administered quality-of-life measures. These measures rely upon patient self-reporting and are now widely utilized by managed care organizations and by Medicare for routine monitoring and assessment of care outcomes in adult patients.

The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) is a commonly used measure of trait and state anxiety. It can be used in clinical settings to diagnose anxiety and to distinguish it from depressive syndromes. It also is often used in research as an indicator of caregiver distress

The Perceived Stress Scale is a classic stress assessment instrument. The tool remains a popular choice for helping us understand how different situations affect our feelings and our perceived stress. The questions in this scale ask about your feelings and thoughts during the last month. In each case, you will be asked to indicate how often you felt or thought a certainn way.

It is a 21-question multiple-choice self-report inventory, one of the most widely used psychometric tests for measuring the severity of depression. Its development marked a shift among mental health professionals, who had until then, viewed depression from a psychodynamic perspective, instead of it being rooted in the patient's own thoughts.

There are three versions of the BDI-the original BDI, first published in 1961 and later revised in 1978 as the BDI-1A, and the BDI-II, published in 1996. The BDI is widely used as an assessment tool by health care professionals and researchers in a variety of settings.

This instrument assesses knowledge about back pain. Composed of 16 questions, divided into the following categories: general aspects, concepts and treatment. The score ranges from 0 to 24 points, with a higher score denoting a better knowledge of low back pain.

The COMI is a valid and sensitive questionnaire for the evaluation of patients with degenerative lumbar disease before and after treatment. The COMI is a questionnaire composed of 8 questions that evaluates pain (2 items), function (1 item), well-being (1 item), disability (2 items) and satisfaction (2 items). The scores of the questionnaire range from 1 to 5, with 1 being the best possible result. The total COMI score is the average of the 5 dimensions. It was designed for a simpler but effective standardized evaluation of outcome in patients with low back pain and would replace more cumbersome health-related questionnaires in daily practice.

The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale was designed by W.W. Zung to assess the level of depression for patients diagnosed with depressive disorder. The Zung Self-Rating Depression Scale is a short self-administered survey to quantify the depressed status of a patient. There are 20 items on the scale that rate the four common characteristics of depression: the pervasive effect, the physiological equivalents, other disturbances, and psychomotor activities. There are ten positively worded and ten negatively worded questions. Each question is scored on a scale of 1-4 (a little of the time, some of the time, good part of the time, most of the time).

PISQ-IR is a disease-specific questionnaire to assess sexual function in women with pelvic floor disorders.

The Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI) is recognized as an excellent tool for assessing female sexuality and screening female sexual dysfunction, but it also has important venereological implications as sexually transmitted diseases result from human behaviour in the sexual sphere.

The Gaudenz Incontinence Questionnaire has been used widely in Europe as a diagnostic tool to discriminate between SUI and UUI. Initial studies demonstrated high validity.