Background: Disability questionnaires for LBP-patients mostly emanate from health professionals and have a content of different domains of disability presented as a single sum score, making it difficult to derive changes within a specific domain. This study introduces a new back-specific questionnaire, the Profile Fitness Mapping questionnaire (PFM), which was based on patient’s self-reported characteristics of the LBP. The PFM incorporates both a functional limitation and a symptom scale, with further subdivision of the symptom scale in separate indices for severity and temporal aspects. The aim of the study was to assess the overall validity of the PFM.

Methods and Results: Chronic LBP-patients (n=193) answered the PFM and four validated back-specific criterion questionnaires. The correlation coefficients between the PFM and the criterion questionnaires showed good concurrent criterion validity (0.61 – 0.83). The best discriminative ability between patients with different pain severity was demonstrated by the functional limitation scale of the PFM. Classification according to the ICF revealed a high degree of homogeneous item content of the symptom scale to the domain of impairments, and of the functional limitation scale to the domain of activity limitations. Well centered score distribution indicates that the PFM has the potential to detect improvement or worsening of symptoms and functional limitations in chronic LBP-patients.

Conclusion: The results of the study signify that the PFM is a valid indicator of symptoms and functional limitations of LBP-patients. It provides the combination of a composite total score and the possibility of evaluations within specific domains of disability.