Comparisons Between Backs Questionnaire And Other Existing Questionnaires Against Standards Set By A Social Security Organization Based In A Developing Country

ABSTRACT

@#In a country that struggles on safety standards and relying heavily on manual labour, Malaysia over the decade had to be very objective in defining work- relatedness among musculoskeletal disorder cases especially chronic low back pain. The BACKS questionnaire was a proposed Back Apparatus; a Collaboration between National University of Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC) with Malaysian Social Security Organization (SOCSO) to assist in determining occupational chronic back pain. In the questionnaire, chronic back pain was defined as minimal cumulative back pain for more than 2 weeks in the past year, Pain Visual Analog Score above 2 cm and Oswestry Disability Index of above 20%. Based on the SOCSO registry from 2008 to 2010, 428 (56.3%) workers of 760 workers with back pain agreed and met the requirements of our study. According to the standards of the Medical Board, the BACKS Tool reported a sensitivity of 62.7%, specificity of 94.5%, positive- predictive value (PPV) of 92.9% and negative- predictive value (NPV) of 69.0% with moderate agreement as Kappa value was 0.56. The BACKS Tool served as a complementary assessment along with visits to the workplace that has its advantages when one would to conduct a self- administered assessment of their workplace by safety and health officers, organizations with limited funding.