Development of a New and Simple Postoperative Pain Fear Scale for Elective Surgeries in Adult Patients

Abstract

Aim: There is a need to assess the pain fear levels of surgical patients simply and appropriately before the surgery. This study aimed to develop and test the psychometrics of an instrument to evaluate the fear of postoperative pain. Methods: This methodological study was conducted at four surgical clinics including general surgery, orthopedics and traumatology, neurosurgery, heart and vessel surgery of a university hospital between 28 March and 19 October 2018. Totally, 150 patients who were scheduled for elective surgery and at their preoperative day were included. This scale contained 10 items related to the postoperative pain sources and aimed to identify the pain fear of patients preoperatively. To measure the sampling adequacy, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin index and Bartlett's test of sphericity was used. Explanatory and confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to evaluate the construct validity. The internal consistency of the scale was evaluated by Cronbach's alpha calculation. All hypotheses were tested in two directions. Results: The total variance explained 55.5% of the variance for one factor structure consisting of 10 items. The model fit index values through the confirmatory factor analysis were found to support this structure. Conclusion: The scale is appropriate to be used in clinical settings to quickly evaluate the elective surgical patients' fear level of postoperative pain preoperatively.