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Updated: Dec 26, 2025
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An Experimental Paradigm for the Prediction of Post-Operative Pain PPOP
Published on: January 27, 2010
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Let's talk about pain catastrophizing measures: an item content analysis.
Geert Crombez1, Annick L De Paepe1, Elke Veirman1
1Deparment of Experimental-Clinical and Health Psychology, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, Ghent University, Ghent, Belgium.
Peerj
|March 18, 2020
Summary
Self-report pain catastrophizing measures may not accurately capture the construct. Findings suggest these measures better assess pain-related worrying and distress, questioning the validity of current self-report tools.
Area of Science:
- Psychology
- Pain Research
- Psychometrics
Background:
- Concerns exist regarding the validity of self-report measures for pain catastrophizing.
- Investigated whether items in these measures assess pain catastrophizing or other constructs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To assess the discriminant content validity of pain catastrophizing self-report measures.
- To determine if items reflect the intended construct or related concepts like worrying or distress.
Main Methods:
- Evaluated 58 items from six pain catastrophizing measures and 34 items from related construct questionnaires.
- 94 participants rated item relevance for pain catastrophizing and other constructs via an online survey.
Main Results:
- Items from pain-related worrying, vigilance, severity, distress, and disability measures were distinct.
- Pain catastrophizing measure items did not show distinctiveness and were equally or better captured by pain-related worrying or distress.
Conclusions:
- Current self-report pain catastrophizing measures may not be valid.
- Pain catastrophizing may require contextual information and expert judgment, not just self-report.
- Proposed renaming measures to 'pain-related worrying' to reflect better-measured constructs.
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