The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists: Dimensionality and Internal Consistency of the Norwegian Version

Background and Purpose: The Pain Attitudes and Beliefs Scale for Physiotherapists (PABS-PT) is a self-administered instrument developed to assess the strength of two possible treatment orientations of physiotherapists towards the management of low back pain. The aim of this study was to translate the PABS-PT into Norwegian from the original 36-item Dutch version and to examine its dimensionality and internal consistency. Methods: The Norwegian version was generated in a forward–backward translation procedure. To examine construct validity, a cross-sectional web-based survey was conducted. A convenience sample of 3849 physiotherapists was invited to fill out the Norwegian PABS-PT, together with demographic and professional data. Only therapists who had been involved in back pain management for the last 6 months were included. Principal factor and Cronbach's alpha analyses were performed to determine the factor structure and internal consistency, respectively. Results: The PABS-PT was successfully translated into Norwegian. Responses from 921 therapists were obtained (response rate 24.8%), and of these, 647 could be included in the factor analysis. Analysis revealed two factors, labelled ‘biomedical’ and ‘biopsychosocial’ treatment orientation, which confirmed the structure of the original Dutch version. Thirty-six items were reduced to 19, with 13 items loading on factor I and six items on factor II, explaining 18.1% and 7.1%, respectively, of the total variance. Cronbach's alpha of the biomedical sub-scale was 0.79 and 0.57 for the bio-psychosocial sub-scale. Conclusion: The Norwegian version of the PABS-PT appears to be equivalent to the original Dutch version, showing a similar structure and internal consistency. The two factors accounted for low explained variance, which may be indicative for problematic construct validity. Psychometric properties and usefulness will be further examined.