Validity of the Filipino version of neck disability index : a pilot study / Nathaniel Manuel Aguilar, John Elmo Databali, Kristine Mae Forel, Angelica Hilario, Mycca Legaspi, Julianne Austine Ng and John Nahaniel Uy.

Includes appendices and bibliographical references.

Abstract: Clinical practice guidelines suggest using the Neck Disability Index as a validated outcome measure for recording baseline symptom status in people with neck pain and monitoring changes in pain, function and disability throughout treatment. However, studies show that NDI is rarely used in examining neck pain conditions in the Philippines healthcare setting due to insufficient integration of EBP in the practice of Filipino physical therapists and lack of time for examination. This is why this study aims to adapt the Neck Disability Index (NDI) cross-culturally to the Filipino language and to investigate the validity of the Filipino version of NDI in a Filipino-speaking sample with neck pain. This study employed a quantitative psychometric design to evaluate the validity of the Filipino version of NDI (Fil-NDI) to ensure no change in the English version of the NDI regarding its item and score level characteristics. The study was divided into the translation phase and the validation phase. The translation phase includes forward translation, synthesis of translation, and backward translation. In contrast, the validation phase consists of pilot testing to check for the face and content validity of the Fil-NDI. In the translation phase, the translators retained the overall structure of the English NDI in the forwarded-translated questionnaire. Researchers and forward translators resolved differences by agreeing on what Filipinos would easily understand; hence the synthesized forward translation was done. Comparison between the back and synthesized forward translations showed minimal differences, with most of the item questions being similar. For the validation phase, face validity of the FIL-NDI was determined using Pearson product moment with an α = 0.05 and a critical value of 0.361. The collected data showed a p-value of <α = 0.05 and a critical value of >0.361, indicating that the items of Fil-NDI are valid and significant. the content validity was assessed by an expert committee, consisting of two physical therapists specializing in musculoskeletal conditions and uses the NDI; a Filipino Iinguist, and an English linguist who were not familiar with the medial concepts included in the outcome measure. Each expert rated the relevance, comprehensiveness and comprehensibility of each section of the Fil-NDI through a five-point scale from 5 as strongly agree and 0 as strongly disagree; and then the total scores were averaged to get the overall content validity score. The Fil-NDI showed good content validity, as evidenced by a ≥ 85% overall content validity score. This concludes that the Fil-NDI is a valid tool in measuring neck-specific disability among Filipino-speaking people with neck pain.

Thesis - School of Physical Therapy