Translation of the Pain Disability Index (PDI) to Malay with reliability evaluation and validation

The original version of the Pain Disability Index (PDI) was being translated into a Malay version by the standard procedure, followed by evaluation for its psychometric properties. 80 patients with chronic pain participated in this study. Their ages range from 18 to 66 years old. The interviews were conducted within ten days between February, 2010 and March, 2010. The scree plot had proved that there should be only one factor in this instrument. The value of KMO is 0.831. The coefficient alpha demonstrated good internal consistency of the items. Cronbach´s alpha had given the value of 0.792, with the total corrected correlation of each item is above 0.2. The Malay version of PDI is proved to be reliable and valid instrument in assessing disability daily activities effect by pain, and is comparable with the original version of PDI in terms of structure and psychometric properties.