Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment for Gluteal Tendinopathy questionnaire in Italian and investigation of the association between tendinopathy-related disability and pain

Background: The Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment for Gluteal tendinopathy (VISA-G) questionnaire has recently been proposed as a condition specific patient reported outcome measurement tool to assess the tendinopathyrelated disability. Aim: To evaluate the reliability of the Italian version of the VISA-G questionnaire and its construct validity and to investigate the association between tendinopathyrelated disability and pain. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: University laboratory. Population: Gluteal tendinopathy patients (n=38) and healthy controls (n=38). Methods: Subjects were asked to fill the VISA-G questionnaire twice to evaluate its reliability. The construct validity was evaluated by comparing the VISA score with the Oswestry Disability Index score. Moreover, pain intensity, extent and location were also investigated. Results: The VISA-G scores showed non-significant changes in the median values and the values of intraclass correlation coefficient showed very high correlation between the first and second administration (ICC > 0.90 in both populations). No significant correlations were found between VISA-G score and either pain extent (R=-0.05, P=0.76), or resting pain intensity (R= -0.13, P=0.45), or palpation pain intensity (R= 0.01, P=0.97). Conversely, a high (and significant) negative correlation was obtained between VISA-G score and Oswestry Disability Index score (R= -0.80, P<0.0001). Conclusions: These results indicated that the VISA-G Italian version presents excellent test-retest reliability. Clinical rehabilitation impact: The evaluation of gluteal tendinopathyrelated disability through VISA-G can be useful for the prognostic assessment and/or follow-up of tendinopathy patients in combination with the pain drawing assessment of pain extent.