Preliminary assessment: the Pain Inventory and the Pain Coping Tool

The purpose of this research study was to report the development and preliminary psychometric testing of the Pain Inventory and the Pain Coping Tool. The Pain Inventory was developed to measure cognitive factors believed to impact upon the pain experience. The Pain Coping Tool was developed to measure coping strategies and behaviors believed to be effective in dealing with the pain experience. Forty nursing doctoral students, head nurses, and clinical nurse experts rated the items to establish content validity. Initial testing for reliability found coefficient alphas to be adequate for new scales. Construct validity was established by significant correlations found between these tools and the Pain Intensity and Pain Distress Scales. These findings must be viewed as preliminary based on the small sample of 80 metastatic cancer patients interviewed for this study.