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. 2015 Sep;50(3):381-6.
doi: 10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2015.03.013. Epub 2015 Apr 23.

The Quantitative Analgesic Questionnaire: A Tool to Capture Patient-Reported Chronic Pain Medication Use

Jessica Robinson-Papp  1 , Mary Catherine George  2 , Arada Wongmek  2 , Alexandra Nmashie  2 , Jessica S Merlin  3 , Yousaf Ali  4 , Lawrence Epstein  5 , Mark Green  2 , Stelian Serban  5 , Parag Sheth  6 , David M Simpson  2
Affiliations

The Quantitative Analgesic Questionnaire: A Tool to Capture Patient-Reported Chronic Pain Medication Use

Jessica Robinson-Papp et al. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2015 Sep.

Abstract

Context: The extent to which patients take chronic pain medications as prescribed is not well studied, and there are no generally agreed-upon measures. The Quantitative Analgesic Questionnaire (QAQ) is a new instrument designed to comprehensively document patient-reported medication use, generate scores to quantify it (by individual drug, class, and/or overall), and compare it (qualitatively and/or quantitatively) to the regimen as prescribed.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to describe the development and preliminary validation of the QAQ.

Methods: The QAQ was studied in a convenience sample of 149 HIV-infected participants.

Results: We found that the QAQ scores computed for participants' chronic pain medication regimens were valid based on their correlation with 1) patient-reported pain intensity (r = 0.38; P < 0.001) and 2) experienced pain management physicians' independent quantification of the regimens (r = 0.89; P < 0.001). The QAQ also demonstrated high interrater reliability (r = 0.957; P < 0.001). Detailed examination of the QAQ data in a subset of 34 participants demonstrated that the QAQ revealed suboptimal adherence in 44% of participants and contained information that would not have been gleaned from review of the medical record alone in 94%, including use of over-the-counter medications and quantification of "as needed" dosing. The QAQ also was found to be useful in quantifying change in the medication regimen over time, capturing a change in 50% of the participants from baseline to eight week follow-up.

Conclusion: The QAQ is a simple tool that can facilitate understanding of patient-reported chronic pain medication regimens, including calculation of percent adherence and generation of quantitative scores suitable for estimating and tracking change in medication use over time.

Keywords: Chronic pain; medication adherence; quantitative measures.

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Conflict of interest statement

Disclosures

The authors report no conflicts of interest relevant to the content of this manuscript.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Sample of sections A, B and C from the Quantitative Analgesic Questionnaire (QAQ).
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Sample Quantitative Analgesic Questionnaire (QAQ) calculation.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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