Validation of the structure of the perceived meanings of cancer pain inventory

This study examined the structure of a newly developed instrument measuring the meaning of cancer pain for Taiwanese patients. The Perceived Meanings of Cancer Pain Inventory (PMCPI) was developed based on Lazarus's cognitive theory of emotion and on findings from qualitative interviews. The 27-item PMCPI contains six scales: loss, threat, challenge, blame-others, blame-self, and spiritual awareness. Two hundred cancer patients from three hospitals in northern Taiwan who were experiencing pain were included in the study. A series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to test the fit of specified measurement models. The results indicated that only the loss, threat, challenge and spiritual awareness scales possessed good construct validity, while blame-other and blame-self failed to show a satisfactory fit with the data. Correlation coefficients among the scales were also estimated. Parallel-item testing demonstrated that the items of each valid scale had the same factor loading and error variance.