The Pain Coping Questionnaire short-form: preliminary reliability and validity

The Pain Coping Questionnaire (PCQ) has support for its validity and reliability as a tool to understand how a child copes with pain of an extended duration. However, measure length may limit feasibility in clinical settings.

The primary goal of this study was to develop a short-form (PCQ-SF) that could be used for screening how children cope with chronic or recurrent pain and examine its reliability and validity.

The PCQ-SF was developed in a stepwise manner. First, a confirmatory factor analysis was computed using an amalgamated data set from the validation studies of the PCQ (N = 1225). Next, ratings from researchers and clinicians were obtained on PCQ item content and clarity (n = 12). Finally, the resulting 16-item short-form was tested in a pediatric sample living with chronic and recurrent pain (65 parent-child dyads; n = 128).

The PCQ-SF has acceptable preliminary reliability and validity. Both statistical and expert analyses support the collective use of the 16 items as an alternative to the full measure.

The compact format of the PCQ-SF will allow practitioners in high-volume clinical environments to quickly determine a child's areas of strengths and weaknesses when coping with pain. Future research using larger more diverse samples to confirm clinical validity is warranted.