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

INTRODUCTION: 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. OBJECTIVES: 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. METHODS: 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). RESULTS: 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. CONCLUSIONS: 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.