Fear of movement (kinesiophobia) has been proved in the literature as a predictor of chronic low back pain. The Tampa Scale of Kinesiophobia (TSK) is considered as one of the most suited questionnaires to evaluate pain beliefs and fear of movement/(re) injury in chronic low back pain. The aims of this study were to translate and validate the Arabic version of the TSK for Tunisian population.

To translate TSK questionnaire, “validation transcultural method” was adopted. The development of Arabic version includes translation and back-translation, the expert interpretations and the pre-final version testing in order to evaluate its compliance with the original French version. Psychometric testing encompasses measurements by internal consistency reliability (Cronbach's alpha) and intra-observer reliability (intra-class coefficient ICC and the Bland and Altman method). Moreover, the construct validity (convergent and divergent) was investigated via the comparison between TSK and Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS), Beck depression scale, age and body mass index (BMI).

A total of 50 patients with non-specific chronic low back pain were recruited from Department of Physical Medicine and Functional Rehabilitation, Habib Bourguiba University Hospital of Sfax, Tunisia. The TSK questionnaire showed acceptable internal consistency (α=0.87) and high intra-observer reliability (ICC=0.86). Convergent validity was confirmed by significant correlations between TSK, PSC (r=0.84, P<0.001) and Beck depression scale (r=0.86, P<0.001). Divergent validity was proved by insignificant correlations between TSK, age (r=−0.16) and BMI (r=0.03).

To the best of our knowledge, we are the first who translate the TSK to Arabic version. It reveals good psychometric properties in chronic low back pain. Given these results, we intend to integrate the obtained tool to our professional plane. In fact, we think that our approach will pave the way to a wider reuse for other Arab populations, particularly for North Africans. A further study based on the factor analysis seems to be important for our research.