OBJECTIVE: To examine the utility of the Basic Personality Inventory (BPI) as a complementary tool to the Multidimensional Pain Inventory (MPI) for the evaluation of patients with chronic pain. It was hypothesized that patients labelled 'dysfunctional' on the MPI would exhibit the highest levels of psychological distress as indicated by scores on BPI, followed in order by those labelled 'interpersonally distressed', and those described as 'adaptive copers'. It was anticipated that this pattern would be independent of sex. In addition, validity of the BPI as a measure of psychological distress among patients with pain was examined using psychiatric diagnostic ratings as independent criteria.