The Marburg questionnaire on habitual health findings - a study on patients with chronic pain

Background: Subjective well-being is an essential ingredient in the quality of life concept. The Marburg questionnaire, a seven item scale for the ass essment of the trait dimension of well-being, claims to possess good psycho metric properties. This is investigated in two studies with chronic pain pa tients. Methods: The first study utilizing a prospective, randomized, and c ontrolled design, served to find out the effects of a pain management progr am. Included were 236 patients with a diagnosis of chronic low back pain (T oronto classification) or tension type headache (IHS classification). Study 2 employed a cross-sectional design and relied on the data of 186 patients mainly with pain in the back and the head who had filled in a pain questio nnaire provided by the Schmerz-therapeutisches Kolloquium,a German pain soc iety. Results: Across the studies, internal consistency of the scale with Cronbac h's alpha = 0.91 proofed to be very satisfactory; retest-reliability after an interval of eight weeks came up to r(tt) = 0.81. The scale is one dimens ional and demonstrates good replicability of the dimensional structure. The factor accounts for 65% of the variance of the test scores. Moreover,the s cale is sensitive to change, and, therefore, can be used as an assessment t ool in interventions that aim at an improvement of well-being. Interrelatio ns with variables indicating chronicity support the concept of construct va lidity. This refers to the stage algorithm provided by the pain clinic in M ainz, to the affective dimension of the pain experience,to disability, depr ession, and inability to work. Conclusion:The good psychometric quality of the questionnaire along with it s brevity allows its application as part of a quality of life assessment.