Reliability and validity of lumbar and abdominal trunk muscle endurance tests in office workers with nonspecific subacute low back pain

Abstract

Background and objective: Despite the widespread use of trunk endurance tests, the reliability and validity of these tests in office workers with subacute nonspecific low back pain are unknown.

Materials and methods: This cross-sectional study involved 190 subjects: 30 men and 42 women without low back pain and 47 men and 71 women with low back pain. All subjects underwent timed prone and supine isometric lumbar and abdominal trunk endurance tests that were performed until subjective fatigue occurred. All subjects also completed the Roland Morris and Oswestry self-reported disability questionnaires. A test-retest study (7 days) was conducted with 31 participants with low back pain from the study.

Results: For the abdominal trunk endurance test, males and females with low back pain had mean (SD) values of 62.06 (36.87) and 46.06 (29.28) seconds, respectively, both significantly lower than the asymptomatic workers. For the lumbar test, males and females with low back pain had mean (SD) values of 79.57 (30.66) and 75.49 (28.97) seconds, respectively, again, both significantly lower than the asymptomatic workers. The intraclass correlation coefficients of both tests exceeded 0.90 and the Kappa indices were excellent for both men and women. Receiver-operating curve analyses revealed areas under the curve very close to or exceeding 0.70 for both men and women for both tests.

Conclusions: The lumbar and abdominal trunk muscle endurance tests appeared to be reliable and valid measures in office workers with subacute low back pain.

Keywords: Backache; lower back pain; monitoring; occupational assessment.