Validation of the Korean Version of the DN4 Diagnostic Questionnaire for Neuropathic Pain in Patients with Lumbar or Lumbar-Radicular Pain

PURPOSE: To evaluate the diagnostic value of the Korean version of the Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) questionnaire and to validate this questionnaire in terms of psychometric properties in patients with chronic pain due to degenerative spinal disease. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The Korean version of the DN4 questionnaire, which was translated and linguistically validated by the MAPI Research Group, was tested on 83 patients with lumbar or lumbar-radicular pain. Test-retest reliability was evaluated in a subsample of 40 patients who completed two assessments with an interval of 2 weeks. Nociceptive pain and neuropathic component pain were diagnosed in 40 and 43 patients, respectively. RESULTS: The Cronbach's alpha coefficient of internal consistency was 0.819, and the test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (3, 1) (95% confidence interval) was 0.813 (0.776-0.847) (n=40). The area under the receiver-operator characteristics curve was 0.953 (p<0.001), with 95% confidence interval between 0.869 and 0.990. The Korean version of the DN4 questionnaire showed a sensitivity of 100% and 87.1%, and a specificity of 88.2% and 94.1% at the cutoff value of 3/10 and 4/10, respectively, for discriminating neuropathic component pain. CONCLUSION: The present study demonstrated the good discriminatory power of DN4 between nociceptive pain and neuropathic component pain in patients with lumbar or lumbar-radicular pain.

Development of the Geop-Pain questionnaire for multidisciplinary assessment of pain sensitivity / 대한마취과학회지

BACKGROUND: To assess the multidisciplinary aspects of pain, various self-rating questionnaires have been developed, but there have not been sufficient relevant studies on this topic in South Korea. The aim of this study was to develop a new pain sensitivity-related questionnaire in the Korean language that would be simple and would well reflect Koreans' senses. METHODS: A new pain assessment questionnaire was developed through a pre-survey on "geop", which is the Korean word expressing fear, anxiety, or catastrophizing. We named the new assessment questionnaire the Geop-Pain Questionnaire (GPQ). The GPQ was composed of 15 items divided into three categories and rated on a 5-point scale. As a preliminary study, internal consistency and test-retest reliability analyses were conducted. Subsequently, 109 individuals completed the GPQ along with three pain-related questionnaires translated into Korean (Pain Sensitivity Questionnaire [PSQ], Pain Anxiety Symptoms Scale [PASS], and Pain Catastrophizing Scale [PCS]), and the correlations were analyzed. RESULTS: All items in the GPQ showed appropriate internal consistency, and the test-retest reliability analysis showed no statistically significant differences. The correlations between the GPQ and the existing questionnaires revealed that the GPQ scores had mid-positive correlations with the PSQ scores and strong positive correlations with the PASS and PCS scores. CONCLUSIONS: This study attempted to develop a questionnaire assessing pain sensitivity multidimensionally using the Korean word geop for the first time. The self-rating GPQ showed high correlations with the existing questionnaires and demonstrated potential to be utilized as a pain prediction index in clinical practice.

Cross Cultural Adaptation and Translating the IKDC Subjective Form into the Korean Language

PURPOSE: To develop and translate into Korean the International Knee Documentation Committee Subjective Knee Evaluation Form. MATERIALS AND METHODS: There were 6 steps for the cross-cultural adaptation to standardize the language and cultural differences as follows translation for stage I, synthesis for stage II, back translation for stage III, a review by an expert committee for stage IV, pre-testing for stage V, and submission of the documentation to the AAOS Committee for appraisal was for the final stage VI. A total of 120 patients from 4 hospitals underwent the pre-testing which is the stage V on this process. RESULTS: 30 patients who fully underwent the preoperative and postoperative testing at 3 month were evaluated. The average age of participants was 43.1. There were 12 cases of meniscus tears, 8 cases of primary degenerative arthritis, 4 cases of patellofemoral pressure syndromes and 8 cases of other knee disorders. In the results, we found that there was statistically the strong correlation as follow the test and re-test reliability (p=0.6373), the internal consistency for each evaluation item (p=0.9135), the validity was 0.8882 and the responsiveness (p=0.6605). CONCLUSION: The Korean version of the IKDC subjective knee evaluation form was excellent as our results showed on its reliability, validity and responsiveness through the rigid steps of cross-cultural adaptation. It was submitted to the AAOS Committee for Appraisal. We strongly suggest that it should be considered as part of an effective evaluation for a variety of knee diseases.

Frequencies of Korean Phonemes and Reliability of Korean Phonetically Balanced Word Lists / 대한이비인후과학회지

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Recent advances in the computer technology and the explosive increase in the internet contents have made it possible for us to calculate the exact frequencies of phonemes in the everyday dialogue of the Korean language, which can provide the basic data for the standardization of Korean phonetically balanced (PB) word lists. This study was aimed to investigate the frequencies of Korean phonemes and to compare the results with the existing Korean PB words lists. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The author has developed a computer program that can convert words into written sentences as they are pronounced, and calculate the frequencies of the Korean phonemes. This study used 10 materials (total 171,824 syllables) collected from several TV dramas and news shows. RESULTS: All materials showed a similar trend in the frequency pattern. According to the results, the existing PB words lists had too many /m/,/b/,/o/,/u/'s and too few /n/,/d/,/r/,/e/,/eu/,/i/'s. The most prominent discrepancy existed in the final consonants. CONCLUSION: The present study showed that the existing PB words lists need to be modified to reflect actual frequencies of phonemes.