Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2026

DOI

10.1093/jscdis/yoag012

Publication Title

Journal of Sickle Cell Disease

Volume

3

Issue

1

Pages

yoag012

Abstract

Objectives

In prior research we demonstrated face, construct, discriminant, and preliminary convergent validity of the newly developed, 10-item Functional Status Pain Assessment (FSPA) scale (0-50) in adult SCD patients hospitalized with VOC. We aimed in this study to further demonstrate criterion validity of the FSPA.

Methods

This was a prospective observational study of 561 daily functional and pain assessments from 91 hospitalized adults with SCD from January 2018 to June of 2019. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) Partial Least Squares (PLS) models determined the relationship between LOS, pain intensity, and FSPA. A Generalized Linear Model (GLM) to quantified the impact of changes in pain intensity on LOS.

Results

The population mean age was 34 ± 12.2 years, and 59.3% were female. A little over half were genotype SS. Neither admission nor discharge FSPA scores were significant determinants of LOS. Specifically, no component or factor of FSPA score on day of admission explained the LOS. In addition, FSPA score on day of discharge explained only 5.69% of the variance in LOS. Similarly, FSPA score explained only 19.66% of the variance in pain intensity on any pain day. There was no relationship between LOS and pain intensity changes from admission to discharge (P = .92).

Conclusions

The FSPA score did not demonstrate criterion validity with respect to NRS pain intensity changes from admission to discharge, nor to the LOS for SCD admissions. Instead, unmeasured, perhaps environmental, psychosocial, and economic variables, exerted a far more substantial influence on hospital LOS.

Rights

© The Authors 2026

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) License, which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Data Availability

Article states: "The data presented in this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy."

Original Publication Citation

Smith, W. R., Sop, D. M., Zhang, Y. M., Guy, M. S., & Qayyum, R. (2026). Criterion validity of the functional status and pain assessment scale versus pain and length of stay in hospitalized adults with SCD. Journal of Sickle Cell Disease, 3(1), Article yoag012. https://doi.org/10.1093/jscdis/yoag012

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