Psychometric evaluation of the Pain Vigilance and Awareness Questionnaire (PVAQ) in fibromyalgia: Confirmatory factor analysis and the development of a Swedish 8-item version.

Background: Excessive attention to pain, or hypervigilance, is associated with negative outcomes in chronic pain conditions such as fibromyalgia. The Pain Vigilance and Awareness Questionnaire (PVAQ) is a self-report questionnaire to measure attention to pain. This study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of a Swedish version of the PVAQ.

Methods: Psychometric evaluation on cross-sectional data derived from a clinical trial for fibromyalgia (N = 274). We evaluated item characteristics, factor structure in a confirmatory factor analytic framework, internal consistency, and construct validity in terms of correlations with other clinical variables.

Results: Though confirmatory factor analysis did not result in a satisfactory solution for the full 16-item scale, acceptable two-factor solutions could be based on either nine or eight items (the PVAQ-9 and PVAQ-8). Internal consistency for both the PVAQ-9 and PVAQ-8 were good to excellent, and associations with pain catastrophizing, anxiety, depression, disability, and overall fibromyalgia impact were largely supportive of construct validity. An unexpected result was that, contrary to previous findings, no version of the PVAQ correlated consistently with pain intensity.

Conclusions: The Swedish PVAQ-9 and PVAQ-8 appear to have acceptable psychometric properties when administered online to individuals with fibromyalgia. The PVAQ-8 may be preferable due to being shorter and including an equal number of items per factor. Replication is warranted.

Significance: This study evaluated the psychometric properties of a Swedish translation of the PVAQ in individuals with fibromyalgia. No convincing factor structure was found for the 16-item version. We could, however, confirm the factor structure of an established 9-item version (the PVAQ-9), and recommend further use of a new 8-item version (the PVAQ-8). In summary, the PVAQ exhibited more convincing psychometric properties when the number of items was roughly cut in half.