Active or passive pain coping strategies among participants before hip school

Objective. To assess the use of active and passive pain coping strategies in persons with hip disability before participating in hip school and analyse differences between and correlations with gender and other different background factors and further to analyse the test-retest reliability of the Swedish version of Pain Coping Inventory (PCI-S). Methods. A descriptive cross sectional study among 52 persons (41 women, 11 men, mean age 63±8.6) was conducted. The PCI-S was filled in together with a background form and Hip disability and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (HOOS). 10 persons also filled on PCI-Stwice a week apart to test the reliability. Results. The participants showed big variety in use of pain coping strategies, slightly more active than passive strategies , with women using significant more active pain coping strategies compared to men (p=0.003). The most common used strategies were distraction (active) and resting (passive). The PCI-S showed good test-retest reliability (ICC 0.95 for active strategies in total and 0.88 for passive). Conclusion. Pain coping strategies vary a lot with no strategy in general used very often. PCI-S can be a reliable instrument for assessing pain coping strategies in order to learn more about how patients cope with pain