Validity and Reliability of the Persian Boston Questionnaire in Diabetic Patients with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

Introduction and Carpal tunnel syndrome is known as strangulation of the median nerve in the carpal tunnel. There are different methods for diagnosis of this syndrome. The Boston Questionnaire is a method for determining the intensity and quality of the disorder. The purpose of this study was to determine the validity and reliability of the Persian Boston Questionnaire in order to evaluate the severity and functional ability of carpal tunnel patients in Iranian diabetics. The study was done on 105 diabetic patients. The Persian Boston Questionnaire and its English retranslation were provided by Backward-Forward method. Its content and construct validity were evaluated and in order to determine the reliability of the Questionnaire Cronbach’s alpha was calculated. Data was analyzed by SPSS v.20. In this study content and construct validities of the Questionnaire were 92.75% and 77.7% respectively. The results of Spearman correlation in construct validity assay between the electro diagnosis test and two parameters: symptoms intensity and functional status were 0.33 and 0.34, respectively. Cronbach’s alpha of the questionnaire was 0.86. The Boston Questionnaire is a valid and reliable tool in evaluation of intensity of symptoms and functional status in Iranian diabetics with carpal tunnel syndrome, but it has low validity in evaluating the physiological intensity of illness.