Background: Excellence in Pain Education was the motto of the International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) Global Year Campaign for 2018. Explaining pain neurobiology to patients is one part of pain education. To assess patient's pain knowledge, the Neurophysiology of Pain Questionnaire (NPQ) has been extensively used internationally. The present study describes the translation, cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric properties of the German version of the NPQ (NPQ‑D).
Materials and methods: The questionnaire was translated and adapted following established recommendations. A total of 169 patients and 122 physiotherapists completed the NPQ‑D. The patients also completed the SF12 and the FFbH-R for the purpose of construct validation of the NPQ‑D. Furthermore, 55 patients repeated the NPQ‑D after 10 days. The NPQ‑D was tested for dimensionality, internal consistency, construct validity and test-retest reliability.
Results: Internal consistency was α = 0.52. An exploratory factor analysis revealed four different factors. Therapists did show significantly higher NPQ‑D scores than patients (p < 0.001) and therapist who have been educated in pain neurophysiology scored significantly higher than therapists without this education (p < 0.01). Test-retest reliability was high (ICC = 0.88; 95% CI = 0.82-0.93). There were no correlations between NPQ‑D and SF12 or FFbH-R indicating construct validity of the NPQ‑D.
Conclusions: The NPQ has been translated and adapted into German. The psychometric properties show satisfactory results and the questionnaire can be recommended for clinicians and researchers alike to assess pain knowledge and changes in pain knowledge after pain education interventions.
Keywords: Neurophysiology; Pain education; Pain knowledge; Reliability; Validity.