Properties of pain catastrophizing scale amongst patients with carpal tunnel syndrome – Item response theory analysis

Overall, the psychometric properties of the PCS were found to be sufficiently good to recommend this scale for clinical use in CTS. The PCS is well able to distinguish between people with different levels of pain catastrophizing, even if performing better in elevated levels of catastrophizing. Also, the respondents may have a slight tendency to underestimate the severity of their catastrophizing when responding to the PCS. The results may be of interest to both clinicians and researchers in planning and implementing conservative or operative treatment for CTS, setting rehabilitation goals, and evaluating treatment or rehabilitation outcomes.