Pain is the most common symptom experienced when presenting to the emergency department (ED). Estimates indicate over half of all patients will present in pain. EDs typically focus on care process measures, such as time to first analgesic medication. Process-based metrics remove the patient from their own experience. Unfortunately, when patient-reported measures of pain care are used in the ED for quality improvement or research, they vary widely and often lack validation. Previous work has demonstrated that a modified version of the American Pain Society Patient Outcome Questionnaire Revised Edition (APS POQ R) may provide an ideal patient-reported outcome measure for the adult ED population. However, previous work has left validation incomplete. In this multi-site, multistage research, we demonstrate the construct, convergent and divergent validity and the internal consistency of a modified version of the APS POQ R in adult patients presenting to two large, inner-city EDs with moderate to severe acute pain. After three stages of psychometric testing in 646 patients, we present a nine-question, three construct patient-reported outcome measure for moderate to severe pain in the adult emergency department, now known as the American Pain Society Patient Outcome Questionnaire Revised for the ED (APS POQ RED).

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This project was funded through The Emergency Medicine Foundation (Australia) grant number EMLE-166R34-2020.

I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.

Yes

The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:

This study received approval from the Human Research Ethics Committee of the Royal Brisbane and Womens Hospital (LNR/2019/QRBW/55143).

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Yes

I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).

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All data produced in the present study are available upon reasonable request to the authors.