Assessing Pediatric Chronic Pain Treatment Engagement: Development and Initial Validation of the Pediatric Pain Perceived Behavioral Control Measure

Abstract

Pediatric chronic pain significantly impacts functioning across all domains of life and often carries forward into adulthood. Chronic pain is often complex to treat and pediatric non-adherence to treatment recommendations has been indicated to be upwards of 55%. Using the Theory of Planned Behavior as a framework, the aim of the present study was to develop and validate two measures of perceived behavioral control for chronic pain treatment recommendations with a clinical adolescent patient sample (patient and parent proxy versions). The measures underwent development, data from a pediatric chronic pain clinical sample were collected, and an exploratory factor analysis was conducted on both a patient and parent proxy versions of the pediatric pain perceived behavioral control measure. The resulting measures included a 2-factor patient measure that accounted for approximately 65% of the variance, and a 3-factor parent proxy measure that accounted for approximately 72% of the variance. The resulting measures demonstrated reliability, content validity, and emerging construct validity. Implications for future directions include further validation of the study measures as well as further analysis into reasons why certain hypothesized recommendations did not emerge or appear as relevant factors including lifestyle modifications and psychotherapy. Future development of the measures should include collecting data from a new clinical sample to determine if the factor structure holds through use of a confirmatory factor analysis.