Spinal Cord Injury Pain Instrument and painDETECT questionnaire: Convergent construct validity in individuals with...

Area of Science:

• Neurology
• Pain Management
• Spinal Cord Injury Research

Background:

• Neuropathic pain (NeuP) is a common complication following spinal cord injury (SCI).
• The SCI Pain Instrument (SCIPI) was developed as a specific screening tool for NeuP in SCI patients.
• Previous validation showed promise, but further psychometric evaluation was needed. The painDETECT questionnaire (PDQ) is widely used but not specifically validated for SCI.

Purpose of the Study:

• To establish convergent construct validity for the SCIPI.
• To identify the optimal item combination for the SCIPI.
• To re-evaluate the PDQ for SCI-related NeuP according to current guidelines.

Main Methods:

• A prospective monocentric study involving 88 individuals with SCI.
• Neurological examination using the International Standards for Neurological Classification of SCI.
• Linguistic validation of SCIPI, re-evaluation of PDQ as a binary classifier, and ROC analysis against the IASP-grading system.

Main Results:

• A 4-item SCIPI with a cut-off score of 1.5 demonstrated high sensitivity (0.864) and specificity (0.839).
• The SCIPI showed strong correlation (r_sp = 0.76) with the PDQ.
• ROC analysis indicated comparable performance between SCIPI/PDQ and SCIPI/IASP, suggesting validity for both tools in SCI.

Conclusions:

• The SCIPI is a valid and user-friendly screening tool for NeuP in SCI.
• The PDQ is a recommended complementary tool for assessing SCI-related pain, including monitoring severity and temporal changes.
• Both SCIPI and PDQ demonstrate strong convergent validity against the IASP grading system for SCI-related pain.