Kazakh-Language Adaptation of the Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire: A Pilot Study

Objective. To translate, culturally adapt, and validate the Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire (WMSDsQ) into the Kazakh language among nursing professionals, and to assess its psychometric properties to support its use in further research and clinical practice for the evaluation and prevention of work-related musculoskeletal disorders.
Materials and Methods. The study uses data obtained during the pilot testing of an adapted version of the Work-Related Musculoskeletal Disorders Questionnaire (WMSDsQ), which includes 88 questions aimed at a comprehensive assessment of the prevalence of professionally caused diseases of the musculoskeletal system, occupational risk factors, ergonomic working conditions, as well as the specifics of nurses' work activities. The IBM SPSS Statistics 26 program was used for statistical processing of the received data. The internal consistency of the adapted version of the questionnaire was assessed using the Cronbach's coefficient α.
Results. A total of 20 completed the pilot study. The Kazakh version of the questionnaire demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha = 0.952). Corrected item-total correlations ranged from -0.721 to 0.848. Most items showed acceptable correlations (>0.30), including 16 items with low positive correlations and 8 items with negative correlations. Cognitive debriefing identified several items requiring linguistic and cultural adaptation, particularly those related to work pace, repetition, and job control.
Conclusions. This pilot study provides preliminary data that the Kazakh-language version of the WMSDsQ demonstrated high internal consistency and reliable aggregated scores. Although several items showed a low or negative item-total correlation, their removal did not significantly improve reliability, suggesting that these results reflect the multidimensional structure of the questionnaire and sociocultural perceptions of job requirements.