The Albanian version of the Oswestry Disability Index: translation, cross-cultural adaptation, validity, and reliability.

Purpose: The aim of this study was to assess the translation, validation, and reliability of the Albanian ODI (ODI-A) version 2.1b.

Methods: Standardized guidelines for evaluation of psychometric properties were followed. Participants were recruited from a national center with orthopedic-traumatological specialty of an Albanian region. The construct validity, internal consistency, and the reliability of ODI-A measured by seven days test-retest method across two repeated measures were considered.

Results: In total, 200 patients completed the ODI-A 2.1b version: 43% had low back pain, 36% had rheumatoid arthritis as principal diagnosis and the other participants had trauma, luxation, discal hernia, and fractures as diagnosis accompanied by back pain. There were no missing items. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin was 0.613 and Bartlett's test of sphericity was found to be significant ( < 0.001). ODI-A showed excellent test-retest reliability of each item (ICC = 0.707-0.959). Cronbach's for the first completion was 0.684, ICC for ODI-A was 0.629, the SEM was 1.701, and MDC was 4.71.

Conclusions: ODI-A, adapted from a linguistic and cultural perspective, meets validity and reliability requirements necessary for its use in the Albanian population with back pain.