Development and validation of the Pain Treatment Satisfaction Scale (PTSS): a patient satisfaction questionnaire for use in patients with chronic or acute pain.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a measure of patient satisfaction for patients receiving treatment for either acute or chronic pain: the Pain Treatment Satisfaction Scale (PTSS). Development of the initial questionnaire included a comprehensive literature review and interviews with patients, physicians and nurses in the United States, Italy and France. After initial items were created, psychometric validation was run on responses from 111 acute pain and 89 chronic pain patients in the United States. Analyses included principal components factor analysis tests of reliability, clinical validity and confounding. The hypothesized structure of the questionnaire was supported by statistical analyses, and seven overlapping or inconsistent items were removed. The multi-item domains of the final PTSS included 39 items grouped in five dimensions: information (5 items); medical care (8 items); impact of current pain medication (8 items); satisfaction with pain medication which included the two subscales medication characteristics (3 items) and efficacy (3 items); and side effects (12 items). Internal consistency reliability coefficients were good (ranging from 0.83 to 0.92). The test-retest reliability coefficients (ranging from 0.67 to 0.81) were good for all dimensions except medication characteristics (0.55). All dimensions except medical care discriminated well according to pain severity. The satisfaction with efficacy dimension, hypothesized to change in the acute pain population, indicated good preliminary responsiveness properties (effect size 0.37; P<0.001). The PTSS is a valid, comprehensive instrument to assess satisfaction with treatment of pain based on independent modules that have demonstrated satisfactory psychometric performance.