Pain barriers: psychometrics of a 13-item questionnaire

Research instruments that effectively measure key pain constructs without needlessly taxing participants are invaluable to investigative processes.

The purposes of this series of studies were to eliminate the redundancy of the commonly used 27-item pain tool, the Barriers Questionnaire (BQ-27); retain its theoretical domains; and maintain its psychometric properties in a new shortened version.

The BQ-27 was reduced to 13 items using data from 259 patients with cancer by selecting the single item from each domain with the highest frequency of endorsement and including all of the items in the side effects subscale. We tested reliability of the BQ-13 using data from additional studies (n = 221 and 166) and used analysis of covariance (n = 221) to determine instrument sensitivity.

Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that the BQ-13 contained two constructs: pain management and side effects. The BQ-13 demonstrated internal consistency as a total scale (alpha = .73) and stability via 4-week test-retest reliability. In addition, the BQ-13 was sensitive, F(1,218) = 7.7, p = .006, to effects of a tailored multimedia educational intervention.

The BQ-13 retained theoretical constructs, eliminated redundant items likely to contribute to floor effects, maintained adequate internal consistency and stability reliability, and had sensitivity to intervention effects.