Brief Pain Inventory (BPI)
What It Measures
The Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) does two things at once: it measures how bad a person's pain is and how much that pain gets in the way of ordinary life. The second half is what sets it apart from a single 0-to-10 pain rating.
Four questions ask the person to rate their pain at its worst, at its least, on average, and right now, each from 0 (no pain) to 10 (as bad as you can imagine). A separate set of seven questions asks how much pain has interfered with general activity, mood, walking, work, relationships, sleep, and enjoyment of life, from 0 (does not interfere) to 10 (completely interferes). Severity and interference are averaged into two separate scores rather than combined into one total.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: Licensing fees and a processing fee may apply depending on the type of use — commercial and industry-funded uses are treated differently from academic ones. Use of the in a publication, clinical trial, or research study requires permission.
Learn More: Two formats exist. The short form is the version used for clinical trials and for all the foreign-language translations. The long form adds descriptive items, burning, tingling, and similar pain-quality descriptors, that can be clinically useful. Condition-specific versions also exist, including a diabetic peripheral neuropathy version (BPI-DPN) and a shingles version (ZBPI).
