Van Lerbeirghe J, et al. – This exploration strived to translate the core outcome measures index (COMI) into Dutch and validate it for use in native Dutch speakers with low back pain. The authors revealed that the reproducibility of the Dutch translation of the COMI was similar to that of other validated spine outcome measures. The COMI items related well with the established item–specific scores. For spine centers treating Dutch–speaking patients, the Dutch translation of the COMI appeared as a reliable and valuable tool and could be used in registries and outcome studies.

• The authors translated the COMI into Dutch following established guidelines and avoiding region-specific terminology.
• They recruited 89 Dutch-speaking patients with low back pain from 8 centers, located in the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium.
• For this study, patients completed a questionnaire booklet including the validated Dutch version of the Roland Morris disability questionnaire, EQ-5D, the WHOQoL-Bref, the Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) for pain, and the Dutch translation of the COMI.
• With a transition scale assessing changes in their condition, patients completed the Dutch COMI translation again 2 weeks later.

• Between the individual COMI items and the validated reference questionnaires, the patterns of correlations were comparable to those reported for other validated language versions of the COMI.
• In this study, the intraclass correlation for the COMI summary score was 0.90 (95% CI 0.84–0.94).
• For the back and leg pain score, it was 0.75 and 0.70, respectively.
• For the COMI summary score, the minimum detectable change was 1.74.
• There were no significant differences between repeated scores of individual COMI items or for the summary score.