Patient-Physician Communication in the Context of Persistent Pain: Validation of a Modified Version of the Patients' Perceived Involvement in Care Scale

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of a modified version of the Perceived Involvement in Care Scale (M-PICS), a measure designed to assess pain patients' perceptions of patient health care provider communication during the medical consultation. Eighty-seven breast cancer outpatients with persistent pain completed a battery of questionnaires, including the M-PICS. A factor analysis supported four factors. Factor 1 reflected health care provider information behaviors; Factor 2, health care provider facilitation of patient involvement; Factor 3, patient information provision; and Factor 4, patient participation in decision making. The M-PICS total had an internal consistency of 0.87; alphas for subscales ranged from 0.80 to 0.90. M-PICS scores related to measures of patient characteristics and outcomes, including pain-related communication barriers, psychological status, quality of life, and health care satisfaction, in predicted ways. The M-PICS is a reliable and valid measure of perceived patient-provider communication in the context of persistent pain.

Pre-consultation educational group intervention to improve shared decision-making for postmastectomy breast reconstruction: a pilot randomized controlled trial

“…For other PROs, we measured the "patient information" and "patient decision-making" subscales of the M-PICS [33] and the "satisfaction with information" subscale of the BREAST-Q [34]. The M-PICS assesses the degree of the patient's involvement in her care during her consultation with her clinician.…”

Measuring (shared) decision-making – a review of psychometric instruments

“…The authors discuss that this might be caused by differences in health care systems between the US and Germany. A modified version of the scale was developed and evaluated for the context of persistent pain [33]. Factor analysis resulted in four factors.…”

The thing about pain: The remaking of illness narratives in chronic pain expressions on social media

“…Abundant research on the chasm between patients and doctors in the clinical management of chronic pain (Eccleston et al, 1997;Kugelmann, 1999;Hadjistavropoulous and Craig, 2002;Kenny 2004;Smith et al 2006;Sullivan et al 2006a;Sullivan et al 2006b;McCrystal et al, 2011), highlights that pain communication in clinical contexts is often fraught by differences in expectations and outcomes.…”