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. 2016 Mar;57(2):449-54.
doi: 10.3349/ymj.2016.57.2.449.

Validation of the Korean Version of the DN4 Diagnostic Questionnaire for Neuropathic Pain in Patients with Lumbar or Lumbar-Radicular Pain

Ho Joong Kim  1 , Joon Hee Park  2 , Didier Bouhassira  3 , Jae Hoon Shin  1 , Bong Soon Chang  4 , Choon Ki Lee  4 , Chang Hyun Baek  5 , Jin S Yeom  6
Affiliations

Validation of the Korean Version of the DN4 Diagnostic Questionnaire for Neuropathic Pain in Patients with Lumbar or Lumbar-Radicular Pain

Ho Joong Kim et al. Yonsei Med J. 2016 Mar.

Abstract

Purpose: To evaluate the diagnostic value of the Korean version of the Douleur Neuropathique 4 (DN4) questionnaire and to validate this questionnaire in terms of psychometric properties in patients with chronic pain due to degenerative spinal disease.

Materials and methods: The Korean version of the DN4 questionnaire, which was translated and linguistically validated by the MAPI Research Group, was tested on 83 patients with lumbar or lumbar-radicular pain. Test-retest reliability was evaluated in a subsample of 40 patients who completed two assessments with an interval of 2 weeks. Nociceptive pain and neuropathic component pain were diagnosed in 40 and 43 patients, respectively.

Results: The Cronbach's α coefficient of internal consistency was 0.819, and the test-retest intraclass correlation coefficient (3, 1) (95% confidence interval) was 0.813 (0.776-0.847) (n=40). The area under the receiver-operator characteristics curve was 0.953 (p<0.001), with 95% confidence interval between 0.869 and 0.990. The Korean version of the DN4 questionnaire showed a sensitivity of 100% and 87.1%, and a specificity of 88.2% and 94.1% at the cutoff value of 3/10 and 4/10, respectively, for discriminating neuropathic component pain.

Conclusion: The present study demonstrated the good discriminatory power of DN4 between nociceptive pain and neuropathic component pain in patients with lumbar or lumbar-radicular pain.

Keywords: Douleur Neuropathique 4 questionnaire; Korean language; Neuropathic pain; psychometric validation.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have no financial conflicts of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1. ROC curve and AUC for the total score of the DN4 questionnaire: the figure shows the cut-off point of optimizing sensitivity and specificity values for discriminating between nociceptive pain and neuropathic component pain in patients with degenerative spinal disease. AUC, area under the curve; ROC, receiver operating characteristics; DN4, Douleur Neuropathique 4.
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