Adapted Brief Pain Inventory – Short Form as a method for studying chronic pain after hysterectomy

The article is dedicated to the study of chronic pain after hysterectomy and the adaptation of the Brief Pain Inventory – Short Form (BPI-SF) scale for assessing chronic pain syndrome. Hysterectomy is one of the most common gynecological surgeries, but it is often accompanied by severe postoperative pain, which can develop into chronic postsurgical pain (CPSP). Chronic pain after hysterectomy occurs in 10–50% of patients, significantly impairing their quality of life. Such a wide variability is largely explained by methodological differences which are caused by various data collection methods.The objective: to develop a simple, accessible, and reliable scale for assessing chronic pain after hysterectomy.Materials and methods. The authors adapted the BPI-SF (ABPI-SF) questionnaire, reducing it to 6 items that evaluate the presence and intensity of pain 3 or more months after surgery. The adapted questionnaire (ABPI-SF) was tested on 50 patients after abdominal hysterectomy. Twenty-five women were interviewed by telephone (group I), and the other 25 patients filled out the questionnaire independently (group II). To compare the correlation, patients in group II additionally completed the main BPI-SF questionnaire.Results. The adapted questionnaire (ABPI-SF) was tested on 50 patients who underwent abdominal hysterectomy. The calculations of the Cronbach’s α coefficient showed that in patients of the group I, who were interviewed remotely, this indicator was 0.67, and in women of the group II – 0.74. This indicates a sufficiently high reliability of the proposed adapted BPI-SF questionnaire and the possibility of its use in the study of CPSP after hysterectomy both remotely and with the direct participation of patients. To further evaluate the validity of the ABPI-SF, a correlation analysis with BPI-SF questionnaire was conducted with the Cleland, which was taken as a basis for the development of the adapted questionnaire. The obtained results determined a significant close correlation (r = 0.702; p = 0.019) between these questionnaires, which once again indicates the possibility of using the ABPI-SF questionnaire which was proposed by us.Conclusions. The adapted ABPI-SF questionnaire is a simple and reliable tool to assess the chronic pain after hysterectomy. It can be used both during direct examination and remotely, which is especially important in the context of the war in Ukraine. The questionnaire allows for a quick assessment of the presence and intensity of pain, which is important for the diagnosis of CPSP.

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