Adaptation of a Danish online version of the Oxford Physical Activity Questionnaire (OPAQ) for secondary school students-a pilot study

OBJECTIVE: To adapt and partly validate a Danish online version of the patient-reported outcome measure (PROM) Oxford Physical Activity Questionnaire (“OPAQ”) and evaluate mobile phones and tablets as data capturing tool to identify potential problems and deficiencies in the PROM prior to implementation in the full study. METHODS: The OPAQ was translated into Danish by a formalised forward-backward translation procedure. Face validity was examined by interviewing 12 school students aged 10–15, recruited from two Danish public schools. After modifications, the online version of the Danish OPAQ was pilot tested in a convenience sample of seven school students for 1 week. Simultaneous objective accelerometer data were captured during the registration period. RESULTS: No major challenges were identified when translating OPAQ. Based on the interviews, the Danish version of OPAQ was perceived to be easy to understand in general, and the questions were relevant for tracking activities during the week. Five of the 12 participants had difficulties with understanding the introductory question: “what is your cultural background” in the original OPAQ. The interviews revealed that the participants recalling 7 days forgot to record some of the physical activity they had done during the week, indicating issues with the weekly recall method. After transforming to the online version, this was reported to be easy and quick to fill in (taking 1–3 min per day), and participants reported the daily design was helpful to remember activities. There was good correspondence between the online version and objective actigraphs with a tendency to underreport. Six participants reported 10–60 min less moderate to vigorous physical activity compared to the actigraphs, while one participant reported 3 min more. CONCLUSION: Participants found the online OPAQ quick and easy to complete during a 1-week period. Completing daily rather than weekly may help limit issues with recall. Overall, there was good agreement between the objective actigraphs and the OPAQ, though the OPAQ tended to slightly underreport moderate to vigorous physical activity. The Danish online version of OPAQ may be useful for capturing school students’ physical activity when objective measures are not feasible. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40814-022-01108-x

Bio-psycho-social characteristics and impact of musculoskeletal pain in one hundred children and adolescents consulting general practice

BACKGROUND: Eight percent of all child and adolescent general practice consultations are due to musculoskeletal conditions, with pain as the most frequent symptom. Despite the commonality of musculoskeletal pain, limited knowledge exists about care-seeking children and adolescents with musculoskeletal pain. The purpose of this study was to describe characteristics of children and adolescents consulting their general practitioner with musculoskeletal pain. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study based on baseline data from the child and adolescent musculoskeletal pain cohort study (ChiBPS), carried out in 17 Danish general practice clinics. Patients aged 8–19 years who had musculoskeletal pain when consulting their general practitioner were recruited. Participants completed a questionnaire on demographics, physical activity, pain impact, psychosocial factors, and expectations of their general practitioner. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data. Normally distributed continuous data were described using mean and standard deviation while non-normally data were described using median and interquartile range (IQR). RESULTS: We included 100 participants (54% female, median age 13 [IQR: 12–16.5 years]). Frequent pain sites limiting activity were knee (56%), back (20%), ankle (19%), and neck (13%). Most participants (63%) consulted their general practitioner due to inability to use their body as usual, due to pain. Median pain duration at consultation was 5 months [IQR: 3 weeks-1 year]. More than a third were often/sometimes nervous (34%), worried or anxious (33%), and took pain medication (33%). Pain impeded ability to participate in sport activities at school (79%) and disturbed spare time activities (88%). Pain also made it difficult to concentrate for 58%, and to fall asleep for 38%. Only 38% expected a pain free long-term future. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates the bio-psycho-social impact of musculoskeletal pain in care-seeking children and adolescents. Demographics, pain characteristics, psychosocial characteristics, and physical characteristics should be included in addressing children and adolescents with musculoskeletal pain. TRIAL REGISTRATION: The ChiBPS study was pre-registered before participant recruitment (ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03678922) date: 09.20.18. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12875-022-01628-8