Rating scales for low back pain

Longo, Umile Giuseppe
Loppini, Mattia
Denaro, Luca
Maffulli, Nicola
Denaro, Vincenzo

^†Department of Orthopaedic and Trauma Surgery, Campus Biomedico University, Via Alvaro del Portillo, 200 00128 Trigoria, Rome, Italy
^‡Department of Neurosurgery, Catholic University School of Medicine, Rome, Italy
^§Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry Mile End Hospital, 275 Bancroft Road, London E1 4DG, UK

Correspondence to: Nicola Maffulli, Centre for Sports and Exercise Medicine, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry Mile End Hospital, 275 Bancroft Road, London E1 4DG, UK. E-mail: [email protected]

Accepted November 24, 2009

British Medical Bulletin 94(1):p 81-144, June 2010. | DOI: 10.1093/bmb/ldp052

Introduction

During the past decades several rating scales have been developed to assess the functional status of patients with low back pain.

Methods

We performed a search using the keywords ‘spine’ in combination with ‘scoring system’, ‘scale’, ‘scores’, ‘outcome assessment’, ‘low back pain’ and ‘clinical evaluation’.

Results

Twenty-eight scoring systems are currently available for the evaluation of low back pain. Each of them evaluates low back pain using specific variables. All these scoring systems are presented.

Discussion

Although many scoring systems have been used to evaluate the back function, we are still far from a single outcome evaluation system that is reliable, valid and sensitive to clinically relevant changes, taken into account both patients' and physicians' perspective and is short and practical to use.

Conclusion

Further studies are required to evaluate the reliability, validity and sensitivity of the low back pain scoring systems used in the common clinical practice.