Brief Pain Inventory (BPI)
Psychology: Health & SleepReliability: alpha 0.80–0.893 sample items
About this scale
A 9-item measure of pain severity and interference with daily activities, widely used in clinical and occupational health research.
Sample item(s)
“Rate your pain at its worst in the last 24 hours (0=no pain to 10=as bad as you can imagine)”
“Rate your pain on average”
“Pain has interfered with general activity”
Reliability
Reported internal consistency: alpha 0.80–0.89. As a rule of thumb, Cronbach’s α ≥ .70 is considered acceptable, ≥ .80 good, and ≥ .90 excellent for established measures.
Notes
Licensing required from MD Anderson.
Source & citation
Cleeland, C. S., & Ryan, K. M. (1994): Pain assessment: Global use of the Brief Pain Inventory. Annals of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore, Vol. 23, No. 2, pp. 129–138.
Source. Scale details are summarised from the publication cited above. Always consult the original source for the full item set, scoring, and permission to use.
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