1 Before you use it
What it is
Ten items on how confident a patient is that they can do things despite their pain — work, socialise, cope, enjoy things, do housework.
The construct is confidence, not pain. That is why it predicts what pain intensity doesn't.
When to reach for it
Any presentation that is persistent, recurrent, or not tracking as expected — and specifically when a patient is doing the exercises but not doing the life.
Pairs naturally with the ÖMPSQ-SF: that one flags risk, this one names something you can act on.
2 Giving it
Scoring
Ten items, 0–6 each, summed to 0–60. Higher is better — the opposite direction to most measures on this list, and an easy one to record backwards.
A 2-item short form exists.
What it doesn’t measure
Pain, function, or distress. It measures confidence about function — which is a different thing from function itself, and the gap between them is often the clinical problem.
Repeat it
3 Reading the score
Interpreting it
Lower scores indicate lower confidence and are associated with poorer outcomes.
Read it as a treatment target, not a label. Low self-efficacy is something graded exposure and successful experience can change — which is exactly what your management sections already do. Re-measure it.
Is the change real?
On placement
Persistent low back pain, 8 weeks of graded activity. PSEQ 24 at intake, 36 today.
Read it as 12 points up — higher is better on this one, the reverse of most measures — clearing both the 9-point ROC MCID and the 11-point measurement-error figure (measured in chronic low back pain). Self-efficacy is a treatment target, and it moved.
Do name it to the patient: 'You are more confident you can do things despite the pain, and that predicts how you go.' Keep the graded exposure going, because that is what moved it.
Student trap. Recording it as though lower is better. It runs the other way, and a reversed entry makes a improving patient look like a deteriorating one.
Official source: eprovide.mapi-trust.org. We don't host the form.
This is a learning tool. It does not diagnose patients and does not replace your clinical educator.
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