JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Low back pain is highly prevalent and most often a specific causative factor cannot be identified. Therefore, for most patients, their LBP is labelled as non-specific, that is, a nociceptive source is not well established, and causes are multifactorial. Patient education and information are recommended for all patients with non-specific low back pain. The Internet is an accessible source of medical information for patients with low back pain. About 50% of patients with low back pain search the Internet for health and medical advice. Patient satisfaction with education and information is important in relation to how inclined patients are to use online information and their trust in the information they find. Whereas patients who are satisfied with the information they retrieve use the Internet as a supplementary source of information, dissatisfied patients tend to avoid using the Internet. Consumers’ loyalty with a product is often applied to evaluate their satisfaction. Consumers have been shown to be good ambassadors for a service or product when they are willing to recommend the service to a friend or a colleague. When consumers are willing to recommend a service to a friend or a colleague, they are also likely to be future users of the service. To our knowledge, no multi-item instrument to specifically evaluate satisfaction with information delivered online for people with low back pain exists.

Objective:

The objective was to report on the development, reliability testing, and construct validity testing of the Online Patient Satisfaction Index to measure patients’ satisfaction with online information for low back pain.

Methods:

This is a cross-sectional validation study of the Online Patient Satisfaction Index. The index was developed with experts and was assessed for face validity. It was subsequently administered to 150 adults with non-specific low back pain. Of those, 70 were randomly assigned to participate in a reliability testing using an intraclass correlation coefficient of agreement (ICCagreement). Construct validity was evaluated by hypotheses testing based on a web application (MyBack) and Wikipedia about low back pain.

Results:

The index included eight items. The median score (Range: 0–24) based on MyBack website was 20 [IQR: 18;22] and median score for Wikipedia was 12 [IQR: 8;15]. The entire score range was used. Fifty-three completed a re-test, and 39 of these were stable in their satisfaction with the homepage and included in the analysis for reliability. ICCagreement was estimated to be 0.82 (CI: 0.68; 0.90). All four hypothesised correlations for construct validity were confirmed in an analysis with complete data.

Conclusions:

The index had good face validity, reliability, and construct validity and can be used to measure satisfaction with the provision of online information regarding non-specific low back pain. Clinical Trial: This study was registered at ClinicalTrials (ID: NCT03449004).