A VALIDATION-STUDY OF AN ITALIAN VERSION OF THE BRIEF PAIN INVENTORY

Aim of this study was to validate the Italian version of the Brief Pai n Inventory (BPI), Breve Questionario per la Valutazione del Dolore (B QVD), which is a multidimensional instrument to assess pain intensity and pain interference with daily functions. A group of 110 patients wi th cancer pain were enrolled in the study and were administered the BV QD and the Therapy Impact Questionnaire (TIQ) which is a valid instrum ent for quality of life assessment in cancer patients. Cronbach's alph as were computed for the interference and severity scales in assessing reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis was utilized to ascertain c onstruct validity of the BQVD, Measures of interference and of intensi ty were calculated a priori from the TIQ results and were used in corr elated correlations. Alpha coefficients for the pain severity and the pain interference scale were above 0.75, Confirmatory factor analysis showed that a 2-factor solution for the BQVD structure was interpretab le and provided adequate fit for the data, The correlation with the TI Q items showed a stronger association between factor 1 (interference) and the interference with affect and activity measure from the TIQ, wh ile factor 2 (severity) was more strongly associated with the TIQ pain severity measure, In comparison with other non-italian samples our re sults show a lower reliability estimate, Overall the analysis of these data shows that the BQVD is a useful and valid tool in assessing pain and its impact on patients' quality of life which could also help in developing international and cross-cultural studies in cancer pain.