Million Visual Analogue Scale Questionnaire: Validation of the Persian Version

STUDY DESIGN: Descriptive cross-sectional study. PURPOSE: To validate the Persian version of the Million Visual Analogue Scale Questionnaire (MVAS), a self-administered low back pain (LBP) questionnaire. OVERVIEW OF LITERATURE: The majority of LBP questionnaires translated into Persian evaluate the impact of LBP on daily living. The MVAS is one of the most commonly used self-administered LBP questionnaires, and was developed to assess a different direction and effect of activities of daily living on LBP intensity. METHODS: The questionnaire was translated into Persian with the forward-backward method and was administered to 150 patients randomly sampled from an occupational medicine clinic in Tehran in 2017. RESULTS: Cronbach's alpha for all subscales ranged between 0.670 and 0.799. Confirmatory factor analysis showed adequate construct validity of the Persian version of the MVAS, with root mean square error of approximation 0.046, goodness of fit index 0.902, and comparative fit index 0.969. Other indexes were satisfactory. CONCLUSIONS: The Persian MVAS is a valid and reliable instrument that can assess the effect of various daily activities on the intensity of LBP.

epworth sleepiness scale for screening of the drowsy driving: comparison with the maintenance of wakefulness test in an Iranian sample of commercial drivers

Traffic fatalities are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in Iran. Occupational sleep medicine field needs more cost-effective and applicable tests for screening purposes. This study reports on a pilot screening study for drowsy drivers in an urban Iranian sample of commercial drivers. The Maintenance of Wakefulness Test [MWT] measures the ability to remain awake objectively. Sleep latency in MWT is a reasonable predictor of driving simulator performance in drivers. In this study, we evaluate whether the Epworth Sleepiness Scale [ESS] and MWT are equally useful in drivers with possible Excessive Daytime Sleepiness [EDS]. 46 consecutive road truck drivers in a transportation terminal entered into this study. The ESS score of patients with normal and abnormal MWT was 3.24 +/- 2.4 and 4.08 +/- 3 respectively which was not significantly differenced [P value = 0.34]. No significant correlation was found between the ESS and sleep latency in MWT [r=-0.28, 95%CI= -0.58 to 0.02]. By using the receiver operating characteristic analysis, the area under the curve was found to be 0.57 [95% confidence interval = 0.37- 0.77] which is not statistically acceptable [P value=0.46]. Our finding showed that the MWT and ESS do not measure the same parameter