The Hamilton Inventory for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: a cognitive debriefing study of the clinician-based component.

STUDY DESIGN Descriptive. INTRODUCTION The Hamilton Inventory for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (HI-CRPS) is a multidisciplinary assessment tool under development. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY This study examined the assessment practices, beliefs and preferences of health care professionals working with CRPS to inform the content and structure of the clinician-based portion of the HI-CRPS (CB-HI-CRPS), as well as refine the user manual. METHODS Semi-structured cognitive interviews were conducted with health care professionals from a spectrum of disciplines working with CRPS. Assessment practices and scaling preferences for 15 assessment concepts were collected, relating directly to items on the CB-HI-CRPS. Interviews were transcribed and coded with emergent themes. RESULTS Participants reported using the concepts from the CB-HI-CRPS 85.2% of the time. Physicians and nurses preferred present/absent judgements, while therapists used none/mild/moderate/severe scaling. Emerging themes highlighted assessment values, beliefs about CRPS, professional roles, and knowledge translation. CONCLUSIONS Lack of uniformity in terminology and assessment behaviours underscores the need for clear scoring frameworks and standardized assessment instructions to improve reliability across the proposed users of the HI-CRPS. LEVEL OF EVIDENCE Level 4.