The factor structure and factorial invariance of the Pain-Coping Questionnaire across age: Evidence from community-based samples of children and adults

The Pain-Coping Questionnaire was developed for children to assess pain-coping strategies. It was originally suggested as a second-order factor measure: eight first-order factors and three higher-order factors. The main objective of this study was to investigate the psychometric properties of the PCQ when used with children and adults. Two samples of 702 children and 590 adults completed the measure. Confirmatory factor analytic procedures were used to examine the factor structure, and invariance across samples. The results provided good support for a second-order structural model of seven subscales for children, for a first-order structural model of seven subscales for adults, and for between-group invariance first-order structural model. These findings suggest that data obtained on the seven first-order factors from children are directly comparable to scores from adults. The internal consistency, criterion validity and convergent validity were also confirmed in both children and adult samples. This work also reports some preliminary findings related to sex and age differences on the use of pain-coping styles.