The Brief Pain Inventory

• Purpose: To assess the severity of pain and the impact of pain on daily functions
• Population: Patients with pain from chronic diseases or conditions such as cancer, osteoarthritis and low back pain, or with pain from acute conditions such as postoperative pain
• Assessment areas: Severity of pain, impact of pain on daily function, location of pain, pain medications and amount of pain relief in the past 24 hours or the past week
• Responsiveness: Responds to both behavioral and pharmacological pain interventions
• Method: Self-report or interview with research staff; paper-and-pencil or electronic data entry
• Time required: Five minutes (short form), 10 minutes (long form)
• Scoring: No scoring algorithm, but "worst pain" or the arithmetic mean of the four severity items can be used as measures of pain severity; the arithmetic mean of the seven interference items can be used as a measure of pain interference
• Reliability: Cronbach alpha reliability ranges from 0.77 to 0.91

Click on a linked language to view a sample in PDF format.

Don't see a language you need? Contact us at symptomresearch@mdanderson.org.

^a A linguistically validated version of the BPI BPI Long Form is available in this language.

^b The BPI for Diabetes is available in this language. Only the English version has been psychometrically validated.

^c The BPI for Herpes Zoster is available in this language. Only the English version has been psychometrically validated.

In response to the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) guidance for the pharmaceutical industry on the use of patient-reported outcome measures in medical product development to support labeling claims, we have prepared a BPI User's Guide to document the BPI's development and psychometric properties.

The information offered therein addresses the recommendations in the FDA guidance and establishes the BPI's adequacy as a measure to support medical product claims.

Validation

Cleeland CS, Ryan KM. Pain assessment: global use of the Brief Pain Inventory. Ann Acad Med Singapore 23(2): 129-138, 1994.

Cleeland CS. Measurement of pain by subjective report. In: Chapman CR, Loeser JD, editors. Advances in Pain Research and Therapy, Volume 12: Issues in Pain Measurement. New York: Raven Press; 1989. pp. 391-403.

Atkinson TM, Rosenfeld BD, Sit L, et al. Using confirmatory factor analysis to evaluate construct validity of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI). J Pain Symptom Manage 41(3): 558-565, 2011.

Ferreira KA, Teixeira MJ, Mendoza TR, Cleeland CS. Validation of Brief Pain Inventory to Brazilian patients with pain. Support Care Cancer 19(4): 505-511, 2011.

Kalyadina SA, Ionova TI, Ivanova MO, Uspenskaya OS, Kishtovich AV, Mendoza TR, Guo H, Novik A, Cleeland CS, Wang XS. Russian Brief Pain Inventory: validation and application in cancer pain. J Pain Symptom Manage 35(1): 95-102, 2008.

Mendoza TR, Mayne T, Rublee D, Cleeland CS. Reliability and validity of a modified Brief Pain Inventory short form in patients with osteoarthritis. Eur J Pain10(4): 353-361, 2006.

Zelman DC, Gore M, Dukes E, Tai KS, Brandenburg N. Validation of a modified version of the Brief Pain Inventory for painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy. J Pain Symptom Manage 29(4): 401-410, 2005.

Coplan PM, Schmader K, Nikas A, et al. Development of a measure of the burden of pain due to herpes zoster and postherpetic neuralgia for prevention trials: adaptation of the Brief Pain Inventory. J Pain 5(6): 344-356, 2004.

Mendoza TR, Chen C, Brugger A, et al. The utility and validity of the modified Brief Pain Inventory in a multiple-dose postoperative analgesic trial. Clin J Pain 20(5): 357-362, 2004.

Keller S, Bann CM, Dodd SL, Schein J, Mendoza TR, Cleeland CS. Validity of the Brief Pain Inventory for use in documenting the outcomes of patients with noncancer pain. Clin J Pain 20(5): 309-318, 2004.

Yun YH, Mendoza TR, Heo DS, Yoo T, Heo BY, Park HA, Shin HC, Wang XS, Cleeland CS. Development of a cancer pain assessment tool in Korea: A validation study of a Korean version of the Brief Pain Inventory. Oncology 66(6): 439-444, 2004.

Badia X, Muriel C, Gracia A, et al. Validation of the Spanish version of the Brief Pain Inventory in patients with oncological pain [in Spanish]. Med Clin (Barc) 120 (2): 52-59, 2003.

Klepstad P, Loge JH, Borchgrevink PC, Mendoza TR, Cleeland CS, Kaasa S. The Norwegian Brief Pain Inventory questionnaire: Translation and validation in cancer pain patients. J Pain Symptom Manage 24(5): 517-525, 2002.

Laudico AV, Mendoza TR, Siguan SS, Cleeland CS. Measuring cancer pain intensity and its effect on daily functioning: validation of the Cebuano version of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI-Ce). Philipp J Surg Spec 57(3): 94-99, 2002.

Mystakidou K, Mendoza T, Tsilika E, et al. Greek Brief Pain Inventory: validation and utility in cancer pain. Oncology 60(1): 35-42, 2001.

Ger LP, Ho ST, Sun WZ, Wang MS, Cleeland CS. Validation of the Brief Pain Inventory in a Taiwanese population. J Pain Symptom Manage 18(5): 316-322, 1999.

Radbruch L, Loick G, Kiencke P, et al. Validation of the German version of the Brief Pain Inventory. J Pain Symptom Manage 18(3): 180-187, 1999.

Saxena A, Mendoza T, Cleeland CS. The assessment of cancer pain in north India: the validation of the Hindi Brief Pain Inventory--BPI-H. J Pain Symptom Manage 17(1): 27-41, 1999.

Uki J, Mendoza T, Cleeland CS, Nakamura Y, Takeda F. A brief cancer pain assessment tool in Japanese: the utility of the Japanese Brief Pain Inventory--BPI-J. J Pain Symptom Manage 16(6): 364-373, 1998.

Caraceni A, Mendoza TR, Mencaglia E, et al. A validation study of an Italian version of the Brief Pain Inventory (Breve Questionario per la Valutazione del Dolore). Pain 65(1): 87-92, 1996.

Wang XS, Mendoza TR, Gao SZ, Cleeland CS. The Chinese version of the Brief Pain Inventory (BPI-C): its development and use in a study of cancer pain. Pain 67(2-3): 407-416, 1996.

Larue F, Carlier AM, Brasseur L, Colleau SM, Cleeland CS. Assessing the prevalence and severity of cancer pain in France:  The French Brief Pain Inventory [abstract]. American Pain Society 10th Annual Scientific Meeting, New Orleans LA, Nov 7-10, 1991.

Clinical Application

Nalamachu S, Wieman M, Bednarek L, Chitra S. Influence of anatomic location of lidocaine patch 5% on effectiveness and tolerability for postherpetic neuralgia. Patient Prefer Adherence 7:551-557, 2013.

Wang XS, Rhines LD, Shiu AS, et al. Stereotactic body radiation therapy for management of spinal metastases in patients without spinal cord compression: a phase 1-2 trial. Lancet Oncol 13(4): 395-402, 2012.

Mendoza TR, Koyyalagunta D, Burton AW, et al. Changes in pain and other symptoms in patients with painful multiple myeloma-related vertebral fracture treated with kyphoplasty or vertebroplasty. J Pain 13(6): 564-570, 2012.

Vadhan-Raj S, von Moos R, Fallowfield LJ, et al. Clinical benefit in patients with metastatic bone disease: results of a phase 3 study of denosumab versus zoledronic acid. Ann Oncol 23(12) 3045-3051, 2012.

Shi Q, Wang XS, Mendoza TR, Pandya KJ, Cleeland CS. Assessing persistent cancer pain: a comparison of current pain ratings and pain recalled from the past week. J Pain Symptom Manage 37(2): 168-174, 2009.

Atkinson TM, Mendoza TR, Sit L, Passik S, Scher HI, Cleeland C, Basch E. The Brief Pain Inventory and its "pain at its worst in the last 24 hours" item: clinical trial endpoint considerations. Pain Med 11: 337-346, 2010.

Dworkin RH, Turk DC, Wyrwich KW, et al. Interpreting the clinical importance of treatment outcomes in chronic pain clinical trials: IMMPACT recommendations. J Pain 9(2): 105-121, 2008.

Cleeland CS. The measurement of pain from metastatic bone disease: capturing the patient's experience. Clin Cancer Res 12(20 Part 2): 6236s-6242s, 2006.

Cleeland CS, Nakamura Y, Mendoza TR, Edwards KR, Douglas J, Serlin RC. Dimensions of the impact of cancer pain in a four country sample: new information from multidimensional scaling. Pain 67: 267-273, 1996.

Serlin RC, Mendoza TR, Nakamura Y, Edwards KR, Cleeland CS. When is cancer pain mild, moderate or severe? Grading pain severity by its interference with function. Pain 1995;61:277-284.