psychometric properties of the obstacles to returntowork questionnaire in a brazilian context purpose to evaluate the psychometric properties of the obstacles to returntowork questionnaire ortwq among brazilian workers on sickleave due to musculoskeletal disorders methods confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to evaluate the factor structure validity of the ortwq model fit indices and salience of factor loadings were assessed the convergent validity was estimated using the average variance extracted ave and composite reliability cr the correlational analysis was verified using the spearman correlation between the ortwq and other specific tools discriminant validity internal consistency stability testretest and floorceiling effect were also assessed results a total of 301 participants completed the ortwq with a mean age of 450 99 years after refinement the factor structure indexes of the oblique model were 2df 18 cfi 09 tli 09 pgfi 07 pcfi 08 rmsea 005 90 ci 005006 only depression physical workload and perceived prognosis subscales presented suitable ave indices 063 051 and 052 respectively the correlations between ortwq and the other questionnaires were appropriate for almost all subscales reliability evaluation showed adequate estimates for all subscales except for the worry due to sickleave cr 045 044 icc 069 a higher order hierarchical model is suggested in order to estimate an overall score to ortwq in a brazilian population conclusions the psychometric properties of the brazilian version of the ortwq were evaluated and after refinement the validity reliability and floorceiling effects indexes were suitable when applied to a sample of brazilian workers on sickleave due to musculoskeletal disorders however the factor structure presented some issues regarding convergent and discriminant validity