Pain Sensitivity Questionnaire (PSQ): A Reliable Tool for Assessing Pain Sensitivity

The Pain Sensitivity Questionnaire (PSQ) is a valuable clinical tool that has shown significant associations with various experimental pain sensitivity assessments conducted on both healthy individuals and patients with chronic pain3,4. The questionnaire consists of 18 items, with three items excluded from the total score calculation to provide references for non-painful sensory experiences. Each item presents a scenario from daily life, and participants are asked to rate the level of pain they would experience in that situation using a Numeric Rating Scale (NRS) ranging from 0 (indicating no pain at all) to 10 (representing the worst imaginable pain). The total score of the PSQ ranges from 0 to 150. The PSQ demonstrates good reliability and validity. In this study, the internal consistency coefficient of the PSQ was: