Background/Purpose: Hausa is among the predominant languages spoken in sub-Saharan Africa; particularly Nigeria and there has been no validated instrument to screen the risk of chronicity of patients with low back pain. The purpose of this study is to translate and cross-culturally adapt the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Screening Questionnaire and test its psychometric properties in Hausa chronic low back pain population.

Methods: This cross-sectional study involved the use of forward-backwards translation method for the translation of the original questionnaire and it was pretested in 30 chronic Non-specific low back pain patients. The psychometric properties which include test-retest reliability, internal consistency, ceiling floor effects, acceptability and construct validity were statistically tested on 120 chronic NSLBP patients.

Results: The OMPSQ-H has demonstrated good test-retest reliability (ICC=0.82) and internal consistency Cronbach’s alpha (0.72), standard error of measurement was good (24.7) and minimal detectable change was 28.3. No ceiling-floor effects were observed and it has good acceptability, all questions were answered in 4±1 minutes. Responsiveness was adequate as OMPSQ-H retest scores demonstrated good correlation with GROCS scores (r=0.67, P=0.01). Construct validity was evaluated using principal component analysis and it reveals six components structure for the OMPSQ-H.

Conclusion: The OMPSQ-H has shown adequate psychometric properties in terms of internal consistency, reliability, responsiveness and constructs validity. This provides evidence that it can be used both clinically and in research to identify patients with risk of chronic disability.

Keywords: Chronic, Non-specific Low Back Pain, OMPSQ, Hausa, Validation, Yellow flags

Funding: This study is funded by the University of KwaZulu-Natal, the college of health sciences bursary.

Ethical approval: This study has been approved by the Biomedical Research Ethics Committee of the University of KwaZulu Natal (South Africa) (Ethics Number: BFC198/18), and by the Human Research Ethics Committee of Rasheed Shekoni Specialist Hospital (RSSH) (RSSH/GEN/226/V.II/7) and the Federal Medical Centre, Birnin-Kudu (FMC BKD) (No number, but evidence if requested can be provided), Nigeria.