Readiness to adopt a self-management approach to chronic pain: the Pain Stages of Change Questionnaire (PSOCQ)

This manuscript describes the development and initial validation of a self-report questionnaire designed to assess an individual's readiness to adopt a self-management approach to their chronic pain condition. Theory and preliminary empirical work informed the development of a pool of items that were administered to a sample of individuals reporting chronic pain. Analyses of the data support a four factor measure that is consistent with the transtheoretical model of change and associated stages of change model. Each of the four factors, precontemplation, contemplation, action, and maintenance, was found to be internally consistent and stable over time. There was also substantial support for each factor's discriminant and criterion-related validity.