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Published on: December 19, 2016
Assessing Unmet Needs of Patients With Chronic Pain: The Development and Validation of the Needs Evaluation
Francesca Chiesi1, Costanza Gori1, Caterina Primi1
1Department of Neuroscience, Psychology, Drug, and Child's Health (NEUROFARBA), University of Florence, Florence, Italy, unifi.it.
Background:
For its high prevalence, diagnostic and therapeutic challenges, and serious burden on affected individuals and societies, chronic pain is considered a public health priority worldwide. However, there is a paucity of data regarding unmet needs of chronic pain sufferers. The aim of the present study was to develop and validate the Needs Evaluation Questionnaire for Chronic Pain (NEQ-CP) for assessing unmet needs of chronic pain patients.
Methods:
The questionnaire development and validation followed some steps: (i) operational definition and item formulation; (ii) investigation about item relevance and comprehensibility; (iii) item selection based on comprehensibility and content validity; (iv) item selection based on item descriptives and item response theory; (v) reliability and validity testing. Participants (an online sample of 521 Italian patients with chronic pain associated with various diseases) were cross-sectionally administered the initial version of the questionnaire and some scales chosen for validity testing.
Results:
Content validity testing led to the identification of a provisional pool of items. Item analysis and item response theory analyses allowed the selection of 21 items for the final version of the NEQ-CP. The questionnaire showed good general and local reliability, and construct and criterion validity evidence were provided.
Conclusions:
The developed and validated questionnaire is an effective and easy-to-use tool in the assessment of the unmet needs of patients with chronic pain. It can be used to identify individuals requiring immediate support and to assist those involved in health policies and research in allocating resources to areas with greater and more urgent needs.
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