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Background: Musculoskeletal disorders are a public health problem with significant effects on work ability. In the context of the promotion and prevention of work-related health, there is a need for valid, simple, time-saving and universally applicable methods for the assessment of musculoskeletal pain and complaints. The aim of this study was the translation of the English Cornell Musculoskeletal Discomfort Questionnaire (CMDQ) into German and the validation of the German version. Methods: The linguistic and cultural adaption of the CMDQ into German (D-CMDQ) followed international guidelines. The adapted pre-version was initially tested in terms of comprehensibility on 44 persons with different educational and occupational backgrounds. The questionnaire was validated further on 68 employees with the reference of an 11-point Numeric Rating Scale (Cohen's Kappa and Spearman's rank correlation coefficients). Finally, reliability (Cohen's Kappa) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) were verified. Results: The D-CMDQ meets the requirements for comprehensibility and demonstrated good validity: The values of Cohen's Kappa and Spearman's rank correlation coefficient obtained substantial to excellent agreement, with one exception. The Kappa values for the test-retest reliability were mainly in the moderate to substantial range whilst taking the prevalence effect into account. The internal consistency was proven satisfactory. Conclusions: The D-CMDQ meets the psychometric requirements for questionnaires. A clear one-sided presentation of body areas enables the time-saving assessment of musculoskeletal complaints and their effects on work ability. As a result, a broad application in the German-speaking world for different occupational groups seems possible, whether performing physical, manually repetitive or sedentary work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little is known about the association of urticarial vasculitis (UV) with thyroid autoimmunity. The latter has been mostly described in the setting of patients with chronic spontaneous urticaria (CSU). In this letter to the editor, we compare UV and CSU through retrospective analyses, which reveal that 41.7% patients with UV presented antithyroperoxidase (anti-TPO) and/or antithyroglobulin antibody (ATA) above the reference range, while only 4% patients with CSU had these antibodies elevated. There is a moderately strong association assessed by the Phi coefficient (φ = 0.420, p = 0.004). Further research is needed to appropriately address the relationship between UV and thyroid autoimmunity and explore any potential underlying pathophysiological process between both diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]