# Gender-Pain Questionnaire: Internal Validation of a Scale for Assessing the Influence of Chronic Pain Experience on Gender Identity and Roles

## TL;DR

This paper introduces and validates a new questionnaire to assess how chronic pain affects gender identity and roles in daily life.

## Contribution

The study presents the first Spanish-language questionnaire to evaluate the impact of chronic pain on gender identity and roles.

## Key findings

- The Gender-Pain Questionnaire has three factors: Gender Self-identity, Roles, and Chronic Pain Impact on Social, Familial, Work and Sexual Life.
- The questionnaire shows sufficient reliability and internal validity for assessing chronic non-cancer pain patients.
- It provides a tool to help design equitable healthcare interventions based on gender-specific pain experiences.

## Abstract

Background/Objectives: Gender (roles as household load and job strain, and identity) represent an effect modifier of the interference between pain experience and sex because it is different between men and women. This study validates a new scale developed to assess how life functioning is impacted by Chronic Non-Cancer Pain (CNCP) due to gender. Methods: A total of 193 Spanish ambulatory CNCP patients (60 [51–73] years old, 69.4% women, 31% retired) were interviewed. Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) yielded 3-factor structure: Gender Self-identity, Roles, and Chronic Pain Impact on Social, Familial, Work and Sexual Life. Results: The Gender-Pain Questionnaire, with the presented factor structure, is an evaluation instrument with enough reliability and internal validity for CNCP patients. Conclusions: This study presents the psychometric properties of a scale for assessing the interference of CNCP patients’ experience on gender and how it affects their daily life activities, relationships and self-identity. It represents the first original questionnaire known in Spanish language to date. This measure could potentially help researchers and clinicians to obtain gender key information to design appropriate and equity healthcare interventions.