Reliability and Construct Validity of the Pain Distress Inventory

We conducted three studies to evaluate further the reliability and construct validity of a new self-report instrument, the Pain Distress Inventory (PDI; Osman et al., 2003, The Pain Distress Inventory: Development and initial psychometric properties, J. Clin. Psychol. 59: 767–785). In Study I, exploratory and confirmatory factor analytic results confirmed the replicability of the four-factor oblique solution of the PDI in a mixed sample of students and nonstudents. We also found strong evidence for criterion-related validity of scores on this instrument. In Study II, multisample analyses results found further evidence for equivalence of structure of the PDI across African American and Caucasian young adults. Ethnic and gender group differences were obtained on two of the PDI scale scores. Internal consistency reliability estimates on the PDI total and scale scores were good in both Studies I and II. In Study III, additional analyses of internal consistency and known-groups validity established strong support for construct validity of the PDI.