Clinimetric testing of two instruments that measure attitudes and beliefs of health care providers about chronic low back pain

Background: There are no clinimetrically tested instruments for measuring attitudes and beliefs of health care providers with regards to chronic low back pain in Brazil. Objectives: To translate and cross-culturally adapt the Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists (PABS.PT) into Brazilian-Portuguese and to test the clinimetric properties of the Brazilian-Portuguese versions of the Health Care Providers' Pain and Impairment Relationship Scale (HC-PAIRS) and the PABS. PT. Methods: The PABS. PT was cross-culturally adapted following the recommendations of current guidelines. The PABS. PT and the HC-PAIRS were clinimetrically tested in 100 physical therapists who routinely treat patients with low back pain in their clinical practice. The internal consistency, construct validity and ceiling and floor effects were tested using only baseline values from the participants while reproducibility was evaluated in a test-retest design with a seven-day interval. Results: Both scales demonstrated adequate levels of internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha ranging from 0.67 to 0.74). Their reproducibility ranged from moderate to substantial (Intraclass Correlation Coefficient(2,1) ranging from 0.70 to 0.84; Standard Error of the Measurement ranging from 3.48 to 5.06). The validity coefficients of the scales ranged from weak to moderate (Pearson's correlation coefficient ranging from 0.19 to 0.62). No ceiling or floor effects were detected. Conclusions: The results of the present study indicate that both PABS. PT and HC-PAIRS are reproducible scales for the measurement of attitudes and beliefs towards chronic low back pain in Brazilian physical therapists.