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Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) in Brazilian patients with chronic cancer pain: A validation study
K Fernandes de Sousa1, D Bassi-Dibai2, C L Ribeiro Guedes3
1Postgraduate Program in Adult Health, Universidade Federal do Maranhão, São Luís, Brazil.
Objective:
To analyze the measurement properties of the Brazilian version of the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) in patients with chronic cancer pain.
Methods:
The study was conducted in two hospitals in northeastern Brazil. In addition to the PCS, the following instruments were used: Barthel Index, Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), and Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS). The measurement properties tested were reliability, internal consistency, and structural and construct validity.
Results:
The sample consisted of 120 cancer patients. The majority of the sample was female (65.8%) and had a basic education (60%). Thirty-three different types of cancer were identified; the most prevalent were uterine cancer (22.5%) and leukemia (10%). We identified the presence of a domain in the PCS in the exploratory factor analysis according to the fit indices: Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin test=0.80 and p value <0.001 in Bartlett's sphericity test. Adequate test-retest reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient=0.80) and internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha=0.89) were observed. Correlations between the PCS and HADS subscales fell within the 0.30-0.50 range, as hypothesized. We identified no floor or ceiling effects (<15%).
Conclusion:
The PCS presented adequate measurement properties to assess catastrophizing in patients with chronic cancer pain, becoming a useful tool to evaluate these patients.
