The development and national norm of the assessment of spinal health of youths

Objective: To develop the Assessment of Spinal Health of Youths (ASHY), and evaluate its reliability and construct validity and further definite the national norm. Methods: According to literature review and expert consultation, the ASHY included 37 items within 4 dimensions, named symptoms of neck-shoulder and low back, the dysfunction of neck-shoulder and low back, daily risk behaviors and health-seeking behaviors. Between December 2015 and March 2016, a total of 15 096 students were purposively selected from Shenyang, Zhengzhou, Shenzhen and Jiangxi province. Item analysis, factor analysis and reliability evaluation methods were used to select items and evaluate the questionnaire. Between November 2017 and January 2018, a total of 14 500 students were purposively selected from Shenzhen, Zhengzhou, Nanchang and Guiyang. These data were used to develop a national norm of ASHY in adolescents. Results: The ASHY consisted of 4 dimensions covering 34 items. Variance cumulative contribution rate was 68.37%. Internal consistency test showed that Cronbach's α coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.91 and Cronbach's α coefficient of each dimension was between 0.76 and 0.93. The split-half coefficient of the questionnaire was 0.78 and ranged from 0.62 to 0.77 for each dimension. Confirmatory factor analysis results showed that the value of RMSEA was 0.067, and the values of NFI, RFI, CFI, GFI, AGFI were all above 0.80, which had a good fitting degree. The 90th percentile was used as the cutoff point about total scores of 92 for junior high school students, 102 for senior high school students and 98 for the overall middle school students. Conclusions: The ASHY is consistent with the evaluation standard of psychometrics. It can be used as a tool to evaluate the spinal health in adolescents.