Abstracts Posters SICOT-SOF meeting Gothenburg 2010 _2_

Poster
Topic: Spine
Abstract number: 24522
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF SYMPTOM SCALE OF A LUMBAR
SPINAL STENOSIS
Miho SEKIGUCHI 1 , Takafumi WAKITA 2 , Koji OTANI 1 , Yoshihiro ONISHI 3 , Shunichi
FUKUHARA 4 , Shin-ichi KIKUCHI 1 , Shin-ichi KONNO 1
1 Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Fukushima Medical University School of
Medicine, Fukushima (JAPAN), 2 Department of Sociology, Kansai University, Fukita
(JAPAN), 3 Institute for Health Outcomes & Process Evaluation Research (iHope
International), Kyoto (JAPAN), 4 Department of Epidemiology and Healthcare
Research, Kyoto University, Kyoto (JAPAN)
Introduction: Lumbar spinal stenosis (LSS) is a common spinal disorder. In assessing
the effectiveness of treatment for LSS, severity of LSS-related symptoms is
considered to be one of the most relevant for an outcome. The aim of this study was
to develop a reliable and valid instrument to measure symptom severity of the
patients with LSS. Methods: First, in order to derive categories of the LSS-related
symptoms, focus group interviews were conducted and the data was analyzed using
qualitative method. This analysis extracted ten domains (symptom at rest and in
certain posture, difficulty in walking, sleep disturbance, etc) and also created an item
pool. One hundred and eighty nine patients with LSS answered this LSS scale
questionnaire. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted to examine the construct
validity and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was calculated. The criterion-related validity
used pain, numbness, and walking capacity as external criteria. The test-retest
reliability was analyzed in 163 patients. Results: Qualitative study extracted ten
domains and also created a pool of 36 items with 5 categorys Likert type scale. With
factor analysis, items with factor loading less than 0.35 were excluded and 25 items
in eight domains were selected. The Cronbach’s alpha of these items was 0.929.
Coefficient of the test-retest reliability was 0.807. Pain, numbness, and walking
capacity were significantly correlated with the score of the LSS symptom scale.
Discussion: A 25 item LSS symptom scale was developed and its reliability and
validity was confirmed.
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