Validation and cross-cultural adaptation of the Arabic version of the Pelvic Girdle Questionnaire

Background : Pelvic Girdle Pain affects pregnant and postpartum women widely, causing distressing symptoms and activity limitations, which affects the quality of life and burdens the economy. The Pelvic Girdle Questionnaire (PGQ) is the only condition-specific standardised tool for assessing activity limitations and symptoms in people with PGP. It is simple to administer and can be used in research and clinical settings during pregnancy and postpartum. There is currently no version of the PGQ in Arabic. This study aimed to translate and culturally adapt the PGQ for the Arabic-speaking population and validate whether it retains its psychometric items like the original PGQ. Methods : This study was carried out in two phases. In the first phase, the PGQ was translated into Arabic and cross-culturally adapted following Beaton guidelines. Seventeen women were enrolled for the pilot test of this phase. In the second phase, 140 healthy pregnant and postpartum women with PGP answered the Arabic version of PGQ (Arabic-PGQ), the Oswestry Disability Index, and the Numeric Pain Rating Scale. These two additional instruments were to test the construct validity of the Arabic-PGQ. Also, floor and ceiling effects, internal consistency, and test-retest reliability and agreement of the Arabic-PGQ were analysed. Finally, the discrimination validity of the Arabic-PGQ to differentiate between women who need treatment for PGP and those who do not, and pregnant versus postpartum women with PGP was assessed. Results : The Arabic-PGQ showed good construct validity with a high correlation between the total score and the Oswestry Disability Index (0.637) and Numeric Pain Rating Scale (0.634). The Arabic-PGQ did not show floor or ceiling effects. It showed good internal consistency with a Cronbach alpha of 0.825 for the total score. Arabic-PGQ showed good reproducibility with test-retest reliability (interclass correlation coefficient> 0.8) and agreement (Minimal detectable change: 17.26%- 19.64%). Arabic-PGQ total score could discriminate between pregnant and postpartum women with PGP (Area under curve= 0.714, P-value< 0.001), but it could not differentiate between the treatment and non-treatment women (Area under curve=0.559, P-value: 0.269)