# Cultural adaptation of the polish version of the brief pain inventory short form among the elderly

## TL;DR

This study evaluates the Polish version of a pain inventory tool for elderly patients to assess its reliability and usefulness in measuring chronic pain.

## Contribution

The study adapts and validates the BPI-SF for use in elderly Polish patients with chronic pain.

## Key findings

- The BPI-SF showed a unidimensional structure with high reliability (Cronbach's alpha of 0.88).
- Raykow’s Rho coefficients indicated acceptable internal consistency for most subscales.
- The tool is suitable for monitoring chronic non-cancer pain in elderly Polish patients.

## Abstract

Demographic changes taking place in society require a holistic approach to the health problems of the elderly, including the chronic pain that often accompanies them in various disease entities. The aim of this study was to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF) among the elderly. The study was conducted on a group of 181 patients of both genders, over 65 years of age, with pain lasting longer than 6 months, hospitalized in internal medicine and geriatric wards. Construct validity was assessed using principal component analysis (PCA) method with Quartimax rotation. The goodness of fit of the measurement model, the BPI-SF was based on, in the sample of Polish elderly was tested using the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The reliability of the scale, in terms of its internal consistency, was estimated using the Cronbach alpha and Raykow’s Rho coefficients and by analysis of item-total correlation, applying the Kline criterion. The PCA revealed unidimensional structure in the BPI-SF the first factor of the solution was defined by all but two items of the scale. The reliability of the total score was 0.88 and remained at the same level after removing sleep position and average pain intensity from the subscales. Raykow’s Rho for the individual subscales was estimated at 0.78 for severity subscale, 0.66 for affective disturbances involving sleep and 0.82 excluding it, and 0.86 for activity-related difficulties. The Brief Pain Inventory-Short Form (BPI-SF), despite differences in psychometric properties with respect to the original results, may be applicable in monitoring the intensity of chronic non-cancer pain (pain associated with the musculoskeletal system and neuropathic pain) among the elderly as well as in the verification of functional status in daily clinical practice.

Trial registration: Statutory research “Chronic pain in people over 65 years of age” K/ZDS/005733, conducted in 2015-2018.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-025-13132-x.