Ester Solé1, Santiago Galán1, Rocío de la Vega2, Elena Castarlenas1, Elisabet Sánchez-Rodríguez1, Mark P. Jensen2 ,Jordi Miró1
1) Spain 2) United States
The most used well-established measure to assess disability in children with chronic pain is the Functional Disability Inventory (FDI). The purpose of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the FDI in a nonclinical sample of children and adolescents. We expected to confirm the 2-factor structure of the FDI found in studies with clinical samples and sought to evaluate the internal consistency and validity of its data in a population which has not yet been studied.
Five hundred and sixty one schoolchildren (aged 8-18 years) completed the Catalan version of the FDI as well as measures assessing anxiety sensitivity, internalizing behaviours, seeking social support and positive self-statements pain coping. A group of 107 participants also completed measures of quality of life.
The results confirmed the 2-factor structure solution for the FDI and demonstrated an adequate to good internal consistency with a Cronbach’s α of 0.89 for the total scale, 0.87 for the Physical Activities scale, and 0.77 for the Non-strenuous Daily Activities scale. Criterion validity was supported by significant positive correlations between scores on FDI and anxiety sensitivity and internalizing behaviors, and significantly negative correlations with quality of life. Discriminant validity was supported by weak non-significant correlations between FDI scores and the pain coping strategies of seeking social support and positive self-statements.
The FDI provided reliable and valid scores as a measure of disability in a community sample of children and adolescents.
Financial support for this project was provided by grants from MINECO (PSI2012-32471, PSI2015-70966-P) and Obra Social de Caixabank. JM’s work is supported by ICREA-Acadèmia, and Fundación Grünenthal. RV’s work is supported by a Beatriu de Pinós Postdoctoral Fellowship (2014 BP-A 00009) granted by AGAUR. SG is supported by a grant from MINECO.
