Coping and catastrophizing in chronic pain: A psychometric analysis and comparison of two measures

We analyzed and compared the psychometric properties of two measures of str ategies for coping with pa in: The Coping Strategies Questionnaire (CSQ) an d the Cognitive Coping Strategies Inventory (CCSI). The CSQ and CCSI were r epeatedly administered to 30 chronic pain patients. Several subscales of bo th measures showed inadequate internal consistency, and test-retest (one we ek interval) reliability lower than 0.7. For each inventory. moderate to st rong intercorrelations between several subscales were observed. The Catastr ophizing subscale was the only subscale for which there was clear evidence of construct validity. Results indicated that both measures showed similar psychometric difficulties, and question the construct validity of subscales other than Catastrophizing. Catastrophizing. however. more closely reflect s appraisal processes than a coping strategy per se. We suggest that measur es that use more parsimonious and empirically derived coping strategy subsc ales and that also assess appraisal factors would assist in advancing our u nderstanding of coping with chronic pain. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.