SENSITIVITY TO CHANGE OF THE ROLAND-MORRIS BACK PAIN QUESTIONNAIRE - PART 1

Background and Purpose. This study estimated the Roland-Morris Back Pa in Questionnaire's (RMQ) change score that best classified patients as those who had achieved an important change and those who had not achi eved an important change. The study also investigated whether the esti mate of change was dependent on patients' initial scores. Subjects and Methods. The RMQ was administered to 226 patients with low back pain of less than 6 weeks' duration during their initial visit for physical therapy and following 3 to 6 weeks of treatment. A global rating of c hange was used to classify patients as those who had changed an import ant amount and those who had not changed. Receiver operating character istic curves were used to identify the RMQ change score that most accu rately classified patients with respect to important change. This anal ysis was repeated for 5 overlapping subsamples of patients with initia l scores 0 to 8, 5 to 12, 9 to 16, 13 to 20, and 17 to 24. Results. Th e area under the receiver operating characteristic curves increased wh en patients' initial scores were taken into account. Estimates of impo rtant change were 2, 4, 5, 8, and 8 for the initial score intervals me ntioned above. Conclusion and Discussion. Important change appears to be dependent on patients' initial RMQ scores. Subsequent inquiry using different hypotheses would add support to the estimates of important change found in this study.