Psychometric evaluation of multidimensional pain inventory (Swedish version) in a sample of elderly people.
OBJECTIVE
The aim was to psychometrically evaluate the Swedish version of the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI-S) and the "brief screening version of MPI-S" for use in an elderly sample.


METHODS
This study comprised 175 people aged 76-99 years reporting pain and in need of help to manage daily living. The instrument's factor structures were investigated through factor analyses, convergent and discriminant validity were assessed through inter-scale correlations and correlations with items from SF-12. Reliability was assessed by Cronbach's alpha.


RESULTS
The full-length version of MPI-S did not, in general, show any satisfactory validity and reliability when used among elderly. It had acceptable convergent and discriminant validity, but the factor analysis did not show a good model fit. Low alpha values were found for most of the sub-scales. However, the brief screening version of MPI showed acceptable validity and reliability, except for rather low alpha values in sections 3 and 4.


CONCLUSIONS
The MPI-S instrument may not be very useful for measuring pain among frail elderly. The brief screening version may instead be a better alternative to the full version of the MPI-S. However, the small number of observations may be the reason to the lack of fit, and further studies are warranted.
Jakobsson
Ulf
U
Department of Health Sciences, Faculty of Medicine, Lund University, P.O. Box 157, SE-221 00 Lund, Sweden. ulf.jakobsson@med.lu.se <ulf.jakobsson@med.lu.se>
Horstmann
Vibeke
V
D000203:Activities of Daily Living / Q000523:psychology; D000367:Age Factors; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002908:Chronic Disease / Q000523:psychology; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends; D011788:Quality of Life / Q000523:psychology; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires / Q000592:standards*; D013548:Sweden