Development and Initial Validation of a 3-Item Brief Pain Inventory

Krebs EE, Bair MJ, Damush TM, Sutherland JM. Development and Initial Validation of a 3-Item Brief Pain Inventory. Presented at: Society of General Internal Medicine Annual Meeting; 2008 Apr 9; Pittsburgh, PA.

In primary care, pain measurement is typically limited to self-reported current pain intensity (i.e., “the fifth vital sign”). Recent studies suggest that the single-item pain score mandated in many settings is frequently inadequate, possibly because pain is a multidimensional experience with clinically important effects on physical and emotional functioning. However, the use of multidimensional pain measures in primary care is limited by practical factors such as instrument length and scoring complexity. The Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) is a well-validated 11-item instrument that assesses two of the most important dimensions of pain: severity and functional interference. The BPI is easy to administer, score, and interpret, but is too long for routine use in primary care. Our goals were to develop an “ultra-brief” version of the BPI and to assess its reliability, validity, and sensitivity to change in a sample of patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.