1 Before you use it
What it is
The default neck PROM, and the one your placement site will already be using. Ten items — pain intensity, personal care, lifting, reading, headaches, concentration, work, driving, sleeping, recreation — modelled directly on the Oswestry.
When to reach for it
Baseline and reassessment for any neck presentation — mechanical neck pain, cervicogenic problems, radiculopathy, whiplash.
For whiplash specifically, the Whiplash Disability Questionnaire was built for that population and is the better fit.
2 Giving it
Scoring
Each item 0–5, summed to 0–50, often reported as a percentage. Higher means more disability.
If an item is genuinely not applicable (no driving licence), the convention is to score out of the completed items and pro-rate — record that you did, because an un-flagged pro-rated score looks like a different patient.
What it doesn’t measure
Fear, distress or work risk. Pair it with the ÖMPSQ-SF where the trajectory looks like it might stall.
And it does not localise anything — a high NDI in a radiculopathy and a high NDI in a headache-dominant presentation are the same number and different problems.
Repeat it
3 Reading the score
Interpreting it
Commonly reported bands run mild / moderate / severe / crippling.
Two items do a lot of work clinically: headaches and concentration. A high total driven by those two is a different presentation from one driven by lifting and work.
Is the change real?
On placement
Mechanical neck pain, no arm symptoms, 6 weeks in. NDI 18/50 at intake, 11/50 today. No items pro-rated.
Read it as 7 points down, over the 5.5-point MCID for neck pain without arm symptoms and the 6.9-point MDC (measured in neck pain). With radicular symptoms the MCID would be 8.5, so check which patient you have before you apply the threshold.
Do look at which items moved. A drop in headache and concentration is a different story from a drop in lifting and work, and the next block should follow the story.
Student trap. Pro-rating a skipped item silently. Score out of what was completed, and write down that you did.
Official source: eprovide.mapi-trust.org. We don't host the form.
This is a learning tool. It does not diagnose patients and does not replace your clinical educator.
Did this page do its job?
CliniStudy is in beta. One tap is enough — it decides what gets fixed first.