[Assessment of chronic pain coping strategies]

We made an adaptation of the Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) to the Spanish population. This measure, the most used in its scope, was developed by Rosenstiel and Keefe in 1983.

205 participants coming from Primary Health Care and pain clinics made up the sample. More than half suffered migraine and chronic tension-type headache; the rest, fibromyalgia, low back pain, arthrosis or arthritis.

Factor analyses explained 59 % of the total variance, on an 8-factor structure that converged into a 2-factor structure. In the 8-factor solution the novelty was the diversification of mental-non-mental distraction strategies, and religious-non-religious hope strategies. In the 2-factor solution the novelty was the grouping according to the efficacy of the coping. All the CSQ factors showed inner consistency and construct validity. Thus, unadaptive coping strategies were related to negative, anxious and depressed self-talk, related to lack of control and perceived self-efficacy, and related to many pain behaviors. On the contrary it happened with adaptive coping strategies. In addition, the diagnosis of pain was related to the utilization and effectiveness of coping strategies.

CSQ is shown to be a reliable and valid measure of coping strategies in chronic pain in the Spanish population, showing the difference between theoretical and empirical factor structures again.