title: Patients' perception of postoperative pain management: validation of the International Pain Outcomes (IPO) questionnaire.
abstract: PAIN OUT is a European Commission-funded project aiming at improving postoperative pain management. It combines a registry that can be useful for quality improvement and research using treatment and patient-reported outcome measures. The core of the project is a patient questionnaire-the International Pain Outcomes questionnaire-that comprises key patient-level outcomes of postoperative pain management, including pain intensity, physical and emotional functional interference, side effects, and perceptions of care. Its psychometric quality after translation and adaptation to European patients is the subject of this validation study. The questionnaire was administered to 9,727 patients in 10 languages in 8 European countries and Israel. Construct validity was assessed using factor analysis. Discriminant validity assessment used Mann-Whitney U tests to detect mean group differences between 2 surgical disciplines. Internal consistency reliability was calculated as Cronbach's alpha. Factor analysis resulted in a 3-factor structure explaining 53.6% of variance. Cronbach's alpha at overall scale level was high (.86), and for the 3 subscales was low, moderate, or high (range, .53-.89). Significant mean group differences between general and orthopedic surgery patients confirmed discriminant validity. The psychometric quality of the International Pain Outcomes questionnaire can be regarded as satisfactory.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The International Pain Outcomes questionnaire provides an instrument for postoperative pain assessment and improvement of quality of care, which demonstrated good psychometric quality when translated into a variety of languages in a large European and Israeli patient population. This measure provides the basis for the first comprehensive postoperative pain registry in Europe and other countries.
authors.affiliation: Department of Anesthesiology and Intensive Care, Friedrich-Schiller University Hospital, Jena, Germany. Electronic address: judith.rothaug@med.uni-jena.de.
authors.forename: Judith
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Rothaug
authors.forename: Ruth
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Zaslansky
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Schwenkglenks
authors.forename: Marcus
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Komann
authors.forename: Renée
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Allvin
authors.forename: Ragnar
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Backström
authors.forename: Silviu
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Brill
authors.forename: Ingo
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Buchholz
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Engel
authors.forename: Dominique
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fletcher
authors.forename: Lucian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Fodor
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Funk
authors.forename: Hans J
authors.initials: HJ
authors.lastname: Gerbershagen
authors.forename: Debra B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Gordon
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Konrad
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kopf
authors.forename: Yigal
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Leykin
authors.forename: Esther
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Pogatzki-Zahn
authors.forename: Margarita
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Puig
authors.forename: Narinder
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Rawal
authors.forename: Rod S
authors.initials: RS
authors.lastname: Taylor
authors.forename: Kristin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ullrich
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Volk
authors.forename: Maryam
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Yahiaoui-Doktor
authors.forename: Winfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Meissner
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D059408:Pain Management; D010149:Postoperative Pain / Q000523:psychology / Q000628:therapy*; D017060:Patient Satisfaction; D010465:Perception; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires
keywords: PAIN OUT; Pain measurement; pain registry; postoperative pain; quality improvement