Illness behaviour profiles in chronic pain: The auckland experience

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Abstract
Patients (200) with chronic pain, presenting to the Auckland Hospital Pain Clinic, completed the illness behavior questionnaire (IBQ) developed by Pilowsky and Spence in Adelaide. Six taxonomic clusters were identified from a numerical analysis of illness behavior profiles and the characteristics of these groups of patients were described. The results of a similar analysis of IBQ scores taken from a larger group of patients were reported and clustered using a variant of the K-means algorithm. Ten clusters were derived. These are described and compared with the groups described by Pilowsky and Spence. Both samples have closely similar illness behavior profiles. Comparisons of the clusters reveal more similarities than differences. This independent replication of the Pilowsky and Spence study apparently enhances the validity of the IBQ and the clusters described.