A short pain survey for postoperative assessment of spine patients in a nonacademic setting

Surveys for assessing outcomes of spine surgery are typically cumbersome and require statistical analyses, which make their use impractical in nonacademic settings. The objective of this study was to develop a short pain survey (SPS) to assess patient satisfaction following spinal surgery and to compare the results with those of the Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF), which is widely used in academic settings. Patients (n = 101) completed the BPI-SF prior to spinal fusion. Six months after surgery, patients completed the BPI-SF and SPS. Marginal homogeneity tests and paired t tests of the BPI-SF indicated highly significant (p < .001) postoperative improvements. One-sample binomial tests and Blyth-Still-Casella 95% confidence intervals also indicated highly significant (p < .001) postoperative improvements with SPS. There was a highly significant congruence (p < .002) between the responses for the two surveys. It was concluded that the SPS can be easily used in nonacademic settings to assess patient satisfaction and clinical success following spine surgery.