The Pain Self‐Efficacy Questionnaire: Cross‐Cultural Adaptation into Italian and Assessment of Its Measurement Properties

Abstract

The Pain Self-Efficacy Questionnaire (PSEQ) is a patient self-reported measurement instrument that evaluates pain self-efficacy beliefs in patients with chronic pain. The measurement properties of the PSEQ have been tested in its original and translated versions, showing satisfactory results for validity and reliability. The aims of this study were 2 fold as follows: (1) to translate the PSEQ into Italian through a process of cross-cultural adaptation, (2) to test the measurement properties of the Italian PSEQ (PSEQ-I). The cross-cultural adaptation was completed in 5 months without omitting any item of the original PSEQ. Measurement properties were tested in 165 patients with chronic low back pain (CLBP) (65% women, mean age 49.9 years). Factor analysis confirmed the one-factor structure of the questionnaire. Internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.94) and test-retest reliability (ICCagreement = 0.82) of the PSEQ-I showed good results. The smallest detectable change was equal to 15.69 scale points. The PSEQ-I displayed a high construct validity by meeting more than 75% of a priori hypotheses on correlations with measurement instruments assessing pain intensity, disability, anxiety, depression, pain catastrophizing, fear of movement, and coping strategies. Additionally, the PSEQ-I differentiated patients taking pain medication or not. The results of this study suggest that the PSEQ-I can be used as a valid and reliable tool in Italian patients with CLBP.

Pain Self‐Efficacy and Fear of Movement are Similarly Associated with Pain Intensity and Disability in Italian Patients with Chronic Low Back Pain

“…The same studies also highlighted that the role of mediator of pain self‐efficacy was more robust relevant than other frequently assessed psychosocial factors, such as fear of movement . While the role of mediators of these psychosocial constructs has been well investigated, the associations of these constructs to main outcomes (i.e, pain intensity and disability) have only been studied with simple correlations, finding pain self‐efficacy correlating higher than fear of movement . However, the study of simple correlations between constructs does not include the possibility to assess and control for the role of potential confounders .…”

Measurement reliability and effect direction for self-efficacy and pain in colorectal cancer patients

“…The study did not consider the possibility that low self-efficacy in those with high symptom distress was actually caused by the distress itself, which is a plausible explanation. In fact, Chiarotto et al (2014) found that cancer patients on pain medication have higher rates of self-efficacy, which would appear to show that distress reduces self-efficacy, rather than the other way around, as assumed in the above study.…”

Pain self-efficacy questionnaire and its use in samples with different pain duration time

“…Most items usually point out a beliefs level to carry out daily activities/chores higher than the scale's mean point; item 7 points out the individuals' lower beliefs level when dealing with pain without using medicines. In view of a similar result, Di Pietro et al 10 and Chiarotto et al 11 proposed that this item could present a high potential to differentiate the individuals' behaviors when facing pain, as it approaches the self-efficacy belief in dealing with pain using no medicines. Thus, this item could have clinical aggregate value in the assessment of pain-related self-efficacy.…”

“…The pain self-efficacy questionnaire (PSEQ) is composed of 10 items arranged in a unifactorial model and was developed to investigate the degree of trust that patients with chronic pain have on themselves to perform daily activities or functions. The use of PSEQ has grown with the increase in translations and adaptations to different languages 3,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] . In spite of its wide use, few studies 5,7,8,11 have shown evidence of the instrument's psychometric properties in different samples based on a confirmatory analysis of the psychometric properties.…”

“…The use of PSEQ has grown with the increase in translations and adaptations to different languages 3,[5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12] . In spite of its wide use, few studies 5,7,8,11 have shown evidence of the instrument's psychometric properties in different samples based on a confirmatory analysis of the psychometric properties. As the PSEQ was developed to assess the self-efficacy belief in individuals with chronic pain, its use is still aimed mainly to this pain condition 13 .…”