Measurement of the chronic pain experience: development of an instrument

Development and testing of the Chronic Pain Experience Instrument (CPEI) were initiated to address the need for a valid and reliable instrument for the accurate clinical assessment of, as well as for the empirical investigation of, the chronic pain experience, that is, the personal response to living with nonmalignant persistent pain. When tested with persons with rheumatic disease (N = 160), the 16-item CPEI demonstrated high internal consistency, adequate stability, and moderate construct validity. Analysis included coefficient alpha, interitem correlations, item-scale correlations, Pearson r, factor analysis, and predictive modeling. Additional testing of the CPEI is suggested prior to its clinical application.