The global prevalence of low back pain is gradually increasing, and it is the main cause of disability, sick leave, and unemployment, posing a heavy burden on individuals and society. Assessing the degree of disability in patients with chronic low back pain is crucial for evaluating the efficacy of clinical interventions and clinical epidemiology. The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ) is currently the main tool for evaluating disability in patients with low back pain, but the applicability of its measurement performance in the Chinese population remains unclear.

To evaluate the applicability of RMDQ in the Chinese population with low back pain and provide evidence for clinical practice and research application.

CNKI, Wanfang Data Knowledge Service Platform, SinoMed, PubMed, Embase and Web of Science were searched from inception to 2023-10-01, to establish a literature base for the performance of the low back pain scale, and then select research on the measurement performance of RMDQ from it. The measurement performance of the RMDQ scale was evaluated according to the COSMIN system evaluation guidelines, and the evidence evaluation level was used to grade the evidence.

A total of six RMDQ documents were included, with insufficient methodological quality for RMDQ content validity and adequate measurement performance. The quality of internal consistency methodology was very good with uncertainty and measurement performance was adequate; the methodological quality of retesting was uncertain, and the measurement performance was sufficient; the methodological quality of measurement error was uncertain, and the measurement performance was sufficient; the methodological quality of criterion validity was uncertain, and the measurement performance was insufficient; hypothesis testing methodological quality was very good with uncertain, and the measurement performance was sufficient and uncertain; the quality of reactivity methodology was very good, with sufficient and insufficient, while the measurement performance was sufficient with insufficient. According to the GRADE evidence quality rating results, there is low quality evidence to prove uncertainty in content validity, and moderate quality evidence to prove sufficient retesting reliability and internal consistency; there is sufficient evidence of low quality to prove the measurement error and reactivity. There is very low quality evidence of insufficient calibration validity when using the Oswestry Dysfunction Index (ODI) and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) as calibrators; hypothesis testing had moderate quality evidence of uncertainty.

The methodological quality of the RMDQ scale is not high, with acceptable measurement performanceand low quality of evidence, and needs to be used cautiously in clinical practice or trials of low back pain in China. Although there is sufficient evidence of moderate quality to prove the reliability and internal consistency of retesting, the research content and methods are not standardized. In future research, attention should be paid to standardization to more accurately assess its applicability in the Chinese population.