Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire

Welcome to the website of the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire (RMDQ).

This website provides access to the 50+ available versions of the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire, a widely used health status measure for low back pain. The RMDQ can be used in research or clinical practice.

The original questionnaire and all translations are in the public domain and can be used without permission and for any purpose. Please note that, having developed the RMDQ over 40 years ago, Professor Roland is now retired and will no longer respond to requests to use the survey - you should just get on and use it..

50+ translations and adaptations are available, including minor adaptations for US, Canadian
and Australian English. Go the questionnaires

New translations will no longer be added to the website. However, you may make new translations yourself if you wish. In doing so, a rigorous translation process should be used. For recommended approaches to translation, click here. No permission is required to make new translations.

Scoring the RMDQ

The RMDQ is scored by adding up the number of items checked by the patient. The score can therefore vary from 0 to 24. It is not recommended to give patients a ‘Yes’ / ‘No’ option. If patients indicate in any way that an item is not applicable to them, the item is scored ‘No’, i.e. the denominator remains 24.

The original version of the Roland Morris Disability Questionnaire was published by Roland and Morris in 19831. A review of papers on the questionnaire was published in 2000 2.

A substantial number of papers have been published on the psychometric properties, validity and reliability of the RMDQ. A list of some of these papers is attached , though this list is not intended to be exhaustive and the search has not been updated since 2018.

 

1 Roland MO, Morris RW. A study of the natural history of back pain. Part 1: Development of a reliable and sensitive measure of disability in low back pain. Spine 1983; 8: 141-144.

2 The Roland-Morris Disability Questionnaire and the Oswestry Disability Questionnaire. Spine 2000; 25: 3115-3124. It should be noted that the questionnaire reproduced in the appendix of this paper contained an error in item 18 of the questionnaire (see correct version of the questionnaire on this website).