Validity and reliability study of the West Haven Yale multidimensional pain ınventory in ındivudals with Cancer

The research has been planned methodologically in individuals who were diagnosed with cancer and West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory was adapted to Turkish in order to investigate its validity and reliability of Turkish version. The research has been done with 520 outpatients who were treated in Daily Chemotherapy Units of Akdeniz University Hospital between January 25, 2010 and April 10, 2010. The forms that contain patients? personal information were prepared by the researcher using West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory and Beck Depression Inventory.Turkish reliability and validity studies regarding the West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory were not found in Turkey. Translation - back translation technique was used for the Turkish version of the inventory. The internal consistency, item analysis, test retest and parallel form methods were used to determine the reliability of the West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory Turkish version. Cronbach?s alpha coefficients of the inventory were found between 0.29 and 0.93. In item analysis of the inventory results, all of the correlations between inventory items were significantly higher. Positive correlations were observed between the variables. The relationship between pain experience and daily activities of the West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory Turkish version and Beck Depression Inventory were found statistically significant (p<0.01), but the relationship between relevant significant other responses and Beck Depression Inventory were found statistically insignificant (p>0.05). The criterion validity of the West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory Turkish version was determined by item analysis based on differences between averages of upper-lower group item scores. When the mean scores of items of the upper and lower groups of the inventory were examined, the differences between groups were found statistically significant. Exploratory factor analysis was used to determine the construction validity of the inventory and factor loading values for all but one item were found between 0.432 and 0.930.As a result, West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory Turkish version was found to be a reliable and valid means to measure the quality, severity, physical, emotional, psychosocial and behavioural dimensions of chronic pain in cancer patients. In line with the results obtained from the research, it is recommended that the West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory Turkish version should be applied on different groups with different socio-demographic features and the validity and reliability of analysis should be examined.Key Words: Cancer pain, West Haven Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory,validity, reliability.