Rehabilitation Research and Practice Table 1: PBQ organic and psychological pain beliefs of the PBQ. Organic pain beliefs Persistent pain is the result of damage to tissues of the body Physical exercise makes the persistent pain worse It is impossible to do much for oneself to relieve persistent pain Persistent pain is a sign of illness Experiencing persistent pain is a sign that something is wrong with the body It is impossible to control your own persistent pain Being in persistent pain prevents you from enjoying hobbies and social activities The amount of persistent pain is related to the amount of damage Psychological pain beliefs Being anxious makes persistent pain worse Thinking about persistent pain makes it worse When relaxed persistent pain is easier to cope with Feeling depressed makes persistent pain seem worse pain beliefs (organic and the psychological beliefs) and was developed to describe these beliefs about pain [16, 19, 20]. It was chosen for this study as it allowed for diﬀerentiation between these two separate dimensions of pain beliefs, was easy to administer, and was not time consuming or lengthy for patients. The questions of the PBQ are listed in Table 1. The internal consistency of each scale of the PBQ has been shown to be 0.73 for the organic scale and 0.70 for the psychological scale [16]. A Likert scale of 1–5 was used to measure each question. The organic scale consists of eight questions; these measure the extent of the belief that that personal control of the pain is impossible (due to physical harm or injury believed to be associated with the pain experi- ence). The psychological scale consists of four questions; these measure the extent of the belief that personal control of the pain is linked to the emotional feelings about the pain experience. The higher the summed score on the PBQ, the greater is the belief that harm and emotional feelings negate personal control of the pain experience. There are other seven questionnaires that measure beliefs about pain; these were excluded, as they were either too lengthy, not speciﬁc to rheumatologic conditions, or outside the domain of this study. They were as follows: the Illness Per- ceptions Questionnaire (revised) [21]; the Back Beliefs Ques- tionnaire [22]; the Fear Avoidance Beliefs Questionnaire (FABQ) [23]; the Survey of Pain Attitudes (SOPA) [24]; the Pain Beliefs and Perceptions Inventory (PBAPI) [25]; the Pain Cognitions Questionnaire [26]; the Cognitive Risk Pro- ﬁle [27]. 2.2. Instruments to Measure Functioning. Research has shown that self-report questionnaires are valid measures for the assessment of functioning [28]. There are a wide variety of functioning measures that can be determined using ques- tionnaires. The AIMS2-SF questionnaire was chosen for this project as (i) it is appropriate for the population sample of 3 rheumatologic conditions; (ii) it is an instrument that mea- sures upper limb, lower limb, and whole body functional movements (unlike most other instruments that do not); (iii) it is a suitable and reliable instrument for measuring disability in personal care for those suﬀering rheumatologic conditions [29]; (iv) the shortened version of the revised AIMS2 has been validated and is reliable with similar psy- chometric properties; it is easy to administer and is use- ful for assessing functioning status with other persistent con- ditions besides arthritis [30]. The AIMS2-SF is appropriate to use in this study, as it is symptom speciﬁc as well as able to reliably enquire about the broader areas of functioning. The AIMS2-SF was developed in concordance with the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) International Classiﬁ- cation of Functioning, Disability, and Health (ICF) [31] and has been widely used for measuring functioning in rheu- matologic diseases [29, 32–34]. The scale includes a broad domain of functional ability with the combination of the ﬁve second-order scores. The second-order scores consist of (i) physical aspects (mobility level, walking, bending, arm/ hand/ﬁnger function, self-care, household tasks); (ii) aﬀect (level of tension and mood); (iii) self-reported pain; (iv) social interaction (social activity, support from family); (v) work. The Health Assessment Questionnaire is another instru- ment applied to measuring functioning in rheumatologic conditions [35–37]. It was not chosen for this study as the AIMS2-SF covers broader areas of functioning, including work and aﬀect. Fourteen other possible questionnaires con- sidered for this study were excluded; the reasons for this var- ied. For example, they were not inclusive of both upper and lower limb functioning, addressed back pain only, addressed pain experiences as “sickness,” or restricted the age group involved. These other questionnaires were as follows: the Oswestry Disability Index [38, 39]; the Roland Morris Dis- ability Scale [40]; the Acute Low Back Pain Screening Ques- tionnaire [41, 42]; the Vermont Disability Prediction Ques- tionnaire [42]; the Screening Questionnaire for predicting outcome in acute and subacute back pain [42]; the Orebro Musculoskeletal Pain Questionnaire [43, 44]; the Chronic Pain Coping Inventory [45]; the International Physical Activity Questionnaire [46]; the Pain Disability Index [47]; the West Haven-Yale Multidimensional Pain Inventory (WHYMPI) [48]; the Sickness Impact Proﬁle [49–51]; the Physical Activity Scale for the elderly (PASE) [52]; the Que- bec Back Pain Disability Scale [53]; the Functional Disabili- ty Inventory [54]. The factorial validity of the AIMS2-SF has been veriﬁed [29]. The higher the total summed AIMS2-SF score, the poorer the functioning. The highest possible score is 120; this indicates exceptionally poor functioning. Such a person is highly dependent on assistance for all daily activities, has a high pain experience, and has low mood and poor social support. On the other hand, a low score indicates greater functioning with both upper and lower limbs, with whole body tasks, and with independence. 2.3. Analysis. The analysis for this study was to use simple linear regression between the sum of the AIMS2-SF and