Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire
Sources: Fairbank JCT & Pynsent, PB (2000) The Oswestry Disability Index. Spine, 25(22):2940-2953.
Davidson M & Keating J (2001) A comparison of five low back disability questionnaires: reliability and
responsiveness. Physical Therapy 2002;82:8-24.
The Oswestry Disability Index (also known as the Oswestry Low Back Pain Disability Questionnaire) is an extremely important tool that researchers and disability evaluators use to measure a patient's permanent functional disability. The test is considered the ‘gold standard’ of low back functional outcome tools [1].
Scoring Instructions
For each section the total possible score is 5: if the first statement is marked the section score = 0; if the last statement is marked, it = 5. If all 10 sections are completed the score is calculated as follows:
Example: 16 (total scored)
50 (total possible score) x 100 = 32%
If one section is missed or not applicable the score is calculated:
16 (total scored)
45 (total possible score) x 100 = 35.5%
Minimum detectable change (90% confidence): 10% points (change of less than this may be attributable to error in the measurement)