Pain Impact Questionnaire (PIQ-6)

The Pain Impact Questionnaire™ (PIQ-6™) is a six question health survey designed to measure pain severity and the impact of pain on an individual's functional health and well-being. The PIQ-6 measures the severity of pain and its impact on work and leisure activities, as well as on emotional well-being within a variety of diseases and general populations. This survey is intended for adults 18 years of age and older and is available in U.S. English with a standard four-week recall period. Try the online PIQ-6 demo.

Pain Impact Questionnaire-Revised (PIQ-R)

In 2009, the PIQ-6 was revised as part of the QualityMetric 2009 Norming Study. This involved updating the norms, revising the scoring metric (i.e., higher T scores now mean less impact of pain), adding an acute (1-week recall) form, and developing updated and more extensive validity, reliability, and interpretive information. This new version is referred to as the Pain Impact Questionnaire-Revised™ (PIQ-R™). Because no changes were made to the standard form (4-week recall) survey content itself (i.e., all item questions and response choices are identical to those on the original version), users of the PIQ-6 are able to score their standard form data using the PIQ-R scoring metric and norms.

PIQ-6 vs. PIQ-R

Here are the main distinguishing features between the PIQ-6 and the PIQ-R:

• Responses from a 1998 sample were used to develop the PIQ-6 norms; norms for the PIQ-R are based on a more recent 2009 sample.
• The PIQ-6 has only a standard form; the PIQ-R has both standard and acute forms.
• Although both versions of the survey utilize T scores, the meaning of these scores are different. High PIQ-6 T scores indicate greater pain impact/worse health; consistent with the SF instruments, high PIQ-R T scores indicate better health/freedom from pain impact.
• The PIQ-R provides the user more extensive content- and criterion-based interpretation information than is available for the PIQ-6.