Abstract
BackgroundThe Central Sensitization Inventory (CSI) is a screening tool designed to detect symptoms related to Central Sensitization (CS) and Central Sensitivity Syndromes (CSS) by measuring the degree of related phenomena. The objective of this study was to create a German, culturally-adapted version of the CSI and to test its psychometric properties.MethodsA German version of the CSI (CSI-GE) was developed, culturally-adapted, and pretested for comprehensibility. The psychometric properties of the resulting version were validated in a clinical study with chronic pain and pain-free control subjects. To assess retest reliability, the CSI-GE was administered twice to a subgroup of patients. Structural validity was tested using factor analyses. To investigate construct validity a hypotheses testing approach was used, including (1) correlations between the CSI-GE and several other well-established questionnaires as well as (2) an investigation of the CSI-GE discriminative power between different subgroups of participants believed to have different degrees of CS.ResultsThe CSI-GE showed excellent reliability, including high test-retest characteristics. Factor analyses confirmed a bi-factor dimensionality as has been determined previously. Analysing construct validity 6 out of 11 hypotheses (55%) were met. CSI-GE scores differentiated between subgroups according to expectations. Correlations between CSI-GE scores and other questionnaires suggested that none of the correlated constructs was identical, but there was overlap with other questionnaires based on symptom load. Several correlations did not fit with our current understanding of CS.ConclusionThe CSI-GE appears to be a reliable tool for measuring CS/CSS-related symptomatology. Whether this implies that the CSI-GE measures the degree of CS within an individual subject remains unknown. The resulting score should be interpreted cautiously until further clarification of the construct.
Highlights
Chronic Pain is often related to a multitude of underlying factors, which can trigger, contribute to, and maintain it [1, 2]
Thirty-six datasets could not be included for different reasons listed in Table 1, resulting in 310 valid datasets for analysis
The 310 analysed datasets consisted of 247 chronic pain patients (CPP) and 63 healthy control group (HC)
Summary
Chronic Pain is often related to a multitude of underlying factors, which can trigger, contribute to, and maintain it [1, 2]. A new classification for chronic pain was added to the ICD-11 (International Classification of Diseases). It introduced a whole chapter on chronic pain conditions that are understood as primary health problems in themselves [3, 4]. There have been many different attempts to objectively quantify CS [11], including Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) [12] and imaging techniques [11]. These tools are complex, time-consuming and expensive [12, 13]. The objective of this study was to create a German, culturally-adapted version of the CSI and to test its psychometric properties
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