Oswestry Disability Index Cross-Cultural Adaptation, Reliability, and Validity

and 3-way validity were performed. Objective. The objective of this study was to translate a version of the Oswestry Disability Index (ODI) into Bra-zilian Portuguese and evaluate its reliability. Summary of Background Data. Reports in the litera-ture have identified a need for internationally standard-ized and reliable measurements to analyze back pain. The ODI has become one of the principal outcome measure-ments used in the management of spinal disorders. Methods. The cross-cultural adaptation was per-formed according to the internationally recommended methodology, using the following guidelines: translation, back-translation; revision by a committee, and pretesting. The psychometric properties were evaluated by adminis-tering the questionnaire to 120 subjects with back pain. Reliability was estimated through stability and homoge-neity assessment. The validity was tested comparing ODI scores with the following measurements: Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire, SF-36, and a Numerical Pain Scale. Results.Good internal consistencywas found (Cronbach’s alpha 0.87). Intraclass correlation coefficient for test-retest reliability was 0.99. The ODI showed moderate cor-relation with pain measurement (r 0.66). Relatively high correlation was also found between the ODI and the Ro-land-Morris scores (r 0.81). There was significant cor-relation (P 0.001) between ODI scores and the 8 scales of the SF-36. Conclusions. The data showed that the cultural adap-tation process was successful and that the adapted instru-ment demonstrated having excellent psychometric prop-erties, reliable in the Brazilian culture. Key words: low back pain, Oswestry, validity, reliability