Development of the Italian version of the Pain Stages of Change Questionnaire in patients with chronic low back pain: cross-cultural adaptation, confirmatory factor analysis, reliability and validity.

Translating, culturally adapting and validating the Italian version of the Pain Stages of Change Questionnaire (PSOCQ-I) to allow its use with Italian-speaking patients with low back pain. The PSOCQ-I was developed by forward–backward translation, a final review by an expert committee and a test of the prefinal version to establish its correspondence with the original English version. Psychometric testing included confirmatory factor analysis, reliability by internal consistency (Cronbach’s a) and test–retest reliability (intraclass coefficient correlation), and construct validity by comparing PSOCQ-I with the Pain Catastrophising Scale (PCS), the Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK), the Roland Morris Disability Scale (RMDQ), a pain Numerical Rating Scale (NRS), and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (Pearson’s correlation). The questionnaire was administered to 308 patients with chronic low back pain. Factor analysis confirmed a four-factor solution (namely, Precontemplation, Contemplation, Action, and Maintenance), achieving an acceptable data-model fit. Internal consistency (a= 0.91–93) and test–retest reliability (intraclass coefficient correlation = 0.74–0.81) were satisfactory. Construct validity showed moderate correlations between Precontemplation and PCS (r= 0.318), TSK (r= 0.385), RMDQ (r =0.320) and NRS (r= 0.335); low correlations were found between the other PSOCQ subscales and PCS (r= – 0.062; 0.039), TSK (r = – 0.164; 0.024), RMDQ (r = – 0.073; 0.004) and NRS (r = – 0.170; 0.020). Low correlations were found between the PSOCQ-I subscales and anxiety (r= – 0.132; 0.150) and depression (r = – 0.113; 0.186). The PSOCQ was translated successfully into Italian, and proved to have a good factorial structure and psychometric properties that replicated the results of other versions. Its use is recommended for research purposes