Reliability of a Self-Reported Questionnaire Assessing the Use of Cannabis Products to Treat Chronic Pain

To develop a questionnaire measuring the use of cannabis to manage chronic pain and assess its reliability.

A questionnaire was developed based on a review of the literature and input from an expert panel. A longitudinal survey was conducted to assess its reliability.

A preliminary questionnaire assessing pain conditions, the type of cannabis products used, the methods of use, the concentration of main cannabinoids, and the use of other pain therapies was developed. The expert panel reviewed the items of this preliminary version to enhance its content validity. The longitudinal survey was conducted to assess test-retest reliability. A two-round survey with 158 participants with chronic pain was conducted between November 2023 and January 2024. Kappa and weighted kappa coefficients were calculated to assess the agreement between the responses of the two rounds. According to criteria of Landis and Koch, items with a kappa ≥ 0.61 were considered to have high reliability.

A 24-item questionnaire was developed and tested. The average age of participants was 38 years, and 53.5% were female. Most of the items assessing the use of cannabis products yielded high reliability. Items with moderate reliability (0.41 ≤ Kappa < 0.61) included the type of pain and the type of cannabinoids used.

The results suggest that the questionnaire developed in this study is a reliable tool for assessing cannabis use in patients with chronic pain in clinical or research settings.