Arabic-Translated Versions of Patient-Reported Outcome Measures Utilized in Spine Research: A Review of Validated Studies
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are standardized tools commonly applied in research and healthcare appraisal. Most were developed in English and the cross-cultural adaptation (CCA) and validation of their translated versions remain topics of contemporary research appeal. This review aimed to identify the Arabic-translated PROMs that were utilized in spine research and to assess the methodological qualities of their studies. The PubMed database was searched, and all relevant publications were identified. The CCA and measurement properties were assessed using the guidelines described by Oliveria and Terwee respectively. Thirty studies that validated the Arabic versions of 26 PROMs were found suitable. The tools that had the highest total citation numbers were Neck Disability Index, Ronald-Morris Disability Questionnaire, Oswestry Disability Index, Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire, Scoliosis Research Society-22, Back Beliefs Questionnaire, Quebec Back Pain Disability Scale, and McGill Pain Questionnaire-Short Form. The Arabic versions of Short Form-36 (SF-36), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), and EuroQol-5D (EQ-5D) were not included due to lack of validation in spine research. All the articles were published from 2007 to 2023 (median 2019) and their journal's impact factor and citation numbers were relatively modest (mean 2 and 6.5 respectively). Most patients had low back pain (19 articles), were recruited from physiotherapy and rehabilitation departments (18 articles) and came from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (12 articles). The quality of the CCA of the Arabic versions was rated good in forward translation, synthesis, back translation, and expert committee review but less so in pretesting and submission. The measurement properties of the studies were considered good quality in internal consistency, reliability, structural validity and cross-cultural validity but less so in content validity, error measurement, responsiveness and floor/ceiling effect. In conclusion, with a few exceptions, most of the widely utilized PROMs in spine research have validated Arabic versions. The methodological quality of the studies was good apart from a few shortages that could be improved upon by further research. Work should be done to address the validation of Arabic versions of SF-36, VAS and EQ-5D in spine research. PROMs are valuable in systematizing subjective outcomes. Their usage in research and clinical settings in any validated language should be highly encouraged.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.028 | 0.084 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.004 | 0.004 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.013 | 0.018 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.003 | 0.003 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".