Chinese Version of the Psychological Inflexibility in Pain Scale for Cancer Patients Reporting Chronic Pain.

Background: Cancer-related chronic pain is reported by many patients during treatment. There are very few Chinese tools for measuring psychological inflexibility caused by cancer pain, particularly with regard to psychological processes that might influence pain severity and function disorder during cancer treatment.

Objective: To culturally adapt the Psychological Inflexibility in Pain Scale (PIPS) to Chinese cancer patients experiencing chronic pain, including the determination of psychometric properties of the translated PIPS.

Methods: This cross-sectional study included 2 phases: (1) translation and cultural adaptation and (2) determination of psychometric properties of the translated PIPS. In total, 389 cancer patients with several types of cancer experiencing chronic pain enrolled from May to September 2018 at a tertiary cancer hospital in Yuelu District of Hunan Province, China.

Results: The Chinese PIPS version was semantically equivalent to the original. It had a 2-factor structure with satisfactory content validity (content validity index = 0.78-1.00), convergent and discriminant validity (composite reliability and average variance extracted at 0.41-0.89, P < .001), criterion-related validity (r = 0.54 and 0.41, P < .001), Cronbach's α coefficients (α = .87), and test-retest reliability (0.9 ≤ r ≤ 0.98).

Conclusions: The Chinese PIPS version has been culturally adapted and has strong psychometric properties. The scale is a psychometrically sound assessment of psychological inflexibility that can be used for future studies of pain and pain management for cancer patients.

Implications For Practice: The study provides a vital tool for the psychological management of cancer patients with chronic pain.