The study reports the results of reliability and validity analyses on the Multiperspective Multidimensional Pain Assessment Protocol (MMPAP). When pain becomes chronic it intertwines with the many dimensions of a patient's life, increasing the complexity of the patient's perception of pain, and subsequently the prescribed treatment. Both the patient's perspective and the physician's perspective are crucial in the assessment of these multiple dimensions, creating a fundamental need for a valid and reliable, multiperspective, multidimensional pain assessment tool.
Each MMPAP consisted of physical examinations by two physicians, and the participant's subjective self-report. Primary criterion standards were MPI and MPQ.
A population-based random sample of 651 outpatients claiming chronic pain were recruited from ambulatory referral centers, both public and private.
As this was a validation of the instruments used, no patient outcomes were influenced or assessed and no interventions were continued or initiated by the research team. The MMPAP is a recently developed pain assessment protocol, which uses both subjective information
and objective medical evidence.
The MMPAP proved to be a reliable and valid tool which may assist in the assessment of chronic pain when two physicians independently assess the patient and this information is combined with the patient's self-reported pain perceptions. Test-retest and inter-rater
reliability analyses confirmed the data collected with the MMPAP was repeatable. A combination of concurrent comparisons with previously validated instruments, construct corroboration with factor analyses ascertained the validity of the MMPAP.
In conclusion, the introduction of this standardized protocol will assist in standardizing assessments of patients with chronic pain. The MMPAP has potential as a diagnostic tool, a measure of treatment effectiveness, and as a tool to compare various pain treatment center outcomes.
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