Short-Form Tool Assesses Chronic Pancreatitis Pain

A short form that assesses pain in patients with chronic pancreatitis has been developed, validated, and tested for reliability. Researchers reported on the creation of the COMPAT-SF tool in a paper published online ahead of print in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

“The COMPAT-SF questionnaire includes the most relevant aspects of pain in chronic pancreatitis and is a feasible, reliable, and valid pain assessment instrument recommended to be used in future trials,” they wrote.

The COMPAT-SF is a six-question distillation of the recently developed COMPAT questionnaire, which addresses all relevant pain dimensions in chronic pancreatitis. The short form of the questionnaire addresses five specific pain dimensions: (1) pain severity; (2) pain pattern; (3) factors provoking pain; (4) widespread pain; and (5) a qualitative pain-describing dimension.

The short form underwent a test-retest study in 76 patients, and concurrent validity was tested against the Brief Pain Inventory and Izbicki pain questionnaire. Convergent validity was confirmed via confirmatory factor analysis, and criterion validity was tested against quality-of-life and hospitalization rates, researchers reported.

The COMPAT-SF can be completed within 10 minutes.

“The questionnaire can be used in pain assessment in chronic pancreatitis, including the possibility to assess pancreatitis-specific domains, including pain-provoking factors,” researchers wrote.

—Jolynn Tumolo

Reference

Kuhlmann L, Teo K, Olesen SS, et al. Development of the comprehensive pain assessment tool short form for chronic pancreatitis: validity and reliability testing. Clin Gastroenterol Hepatol. Published online ahead of print June 2, 2021.