Cross-cultural adaptation and validity of the Spanish central sensitization inventory

The Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) is a new patient-reported instrument, which measures symptoms related to Central Sensitivity Syndromes and Central Sensitization. The aim of this study was to translate the CSI into Spanish, and then to perform a psychometric validation, including a factor analysis to reveal the underlying structure.

In this two-stage psychometric study participated 395 subjects with various chronic pain conditions and that were recruited from two Primary Care Centres. The CSI was cross-culturally adapted to Spanish through double forward and backward translations. The psychometric properties were then evaluated with analyses of construct validity, factor structure and internal consistency. One subgroup (n = 45) determined test-retest reliability at 7 days.

The Spanish Version of CSI demonstrated high internal consistency (α = 0.872) and test-retest reliability (r = 0.91). Factor structure was one-dimensional and supported construct validity.

The psychometric properties of the Spanish version were found to be strong, with high test-retest reliability and internal consistency, with similar psychometric properties to the English language version. Unlike the English version, however, a one factor solution was found to be a best fit for the Spanish version.