Measuring and Contextualizing School Refusal in Pediatric Chronic Pain: Establishing the Psychometric Properties of the SChool REfusal EvaluatioN Measure for Youth With Chronic Pain.

Objective: School refusal is a longstanding difficulty for youth with chronic pain. Yet, research is hindered by a lack of adequate measurement tools to assess and describe the complex interpersonal and system-level factors contributing to school refusal. This study investigates the utility of the SChool REfusal EvaluatioN (SCREEN) measure and its psychometric properties in a sample of youth with chronic pain.

Materials and methods: Youth undergoing multidisciplinary evaluation at outpatient pain clinics completed self and parent-report questionnaires. Descriptive data examined school refusal. Internal consistency and construct validity were tested. Multiple regressions examined the parent and child factors related to school refusal.

Results: In all, 698 youth with chronic pain participated. Two-thirds reported symptoms suggesting at-risk or clinically significant symptoms of school refusal. Cronbach alpha scores were in the acceptable to good range on the SCREEN. Convergent validity for the interpersonal discomfort subscale of the SCREEN was established. The child's fear of pain, stress, peer relationships, and parent protective behaviors significantly correlated with SCREEN total scores. Participants enrolled in fully in-person school during the study period reported significantly higher scores on the interpersonal discomfort scale than those enrolled in remote learning.

Discussion: Our results provide evidence that youth with chronic pain experience significant challenges with school functioning and offer some support for the reliability and validity of the SCREEN in a sample of youth with chronic pain, a population for which few appropriate measures of school functioning have been established. The SCREEN measure may aid in assessing school refusal, with good clinical potential to quantify risk and identify modifiable factors.