Pain scale

Pain scales are tools that can help health care providers diagnose or measure the intensity of a patient's pain . The most widely used scales are visual, verbal, numerical or some combination of all three forms.

Many pain scales include a use of cartoon faces with different expressions. These are often useful when used with children ^{[verification needed]}.

In 1999, the Veterans Administration adopted the slogan "Pain is the fifth vital sign", and encouraged greater use of pain scales in initial diagnoses ^{[verification needed]}.

One of the most common pain scales is the Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale. The Wong-Baker scale goes from 0 to 5:

File:Wong pain scale.jpg

Not all scales are measured on a single axis. For example, the "Brief Pain Inventory" is performed in interview form to identify how pain affects different aspects of the patient's life.

List of pain measurement scales

The following list does not claim for completeness.

Visual analog scale (VAS)^[1]
McGill Pain Questionnaire (MPQ)^[2]
DDS^[3]
Gracely Scale^[4]
Faces Pain Scale (FPS)^[5]^[6]
Pediatric Pain Questionnaire (PPQ) ^{[verification needed]}
Faces Pain Scale - Revised (FPS-R) (Hicks, C., scale is from 1-10)
Faces, Legs, Activity, Cry, Consolability (FLACC) ^{[verification needed]}
Premature Infant Pain Profile (PIPP) ^{[verification needed]}
Numerical 11 point box (BS-11)^[7]
10 and 21 point scales^[8]
Schmidt Sting Pain Index
Starr sting pain scale
Verbal Rating Scale (VRS) ^{[verification needed]}
Simple Descriptive Pain Scale (SDS) ^{[verification needed]}
Wong-Baker Pain Faces Rating Scale (PFS)^[9]
Numerical Pain Scale (NPS) ^{[verification needed]}
Numeric Rating Scale (NRS-11)^[10]
Eland Scale ^{[verification needed]}
Modified Eland Scale ^{[verification needed]}
Cube Test ^{[verification needed]}
Faces Scale ^{[verification needed]}
Modified Faces Scale ^{[verification needed]}
Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) ^{[verification needed]}
Mankowski Pain Scale (SKIP), from 0 to 10 ^{[verification needed]}
Dolorimeter Pain Index (DPI), measuring using the Dol
The Walid-Robinson Index (WRI) = Pain intensity upon admission (from 0 to 10) X Length of pain suffering (in months) ^{[verification needed]}

Notes

Walid MS, Hyer LA, Ajjan M, Barth ACM, Robinson JS. Prevalence of opioid-dependence in spine surgery patients and correlation with length of stay. J Opioid Management 2007, Volume 3, Number 3. PMID: 18027538
Walid MS, Hyer LA, Ajjan M, Robinson JS: Predicting Opioid-Dependence Using Pain Intensity and Length of Pain Suffering in Pre-Spine-Surgery Patients. The Internet J Pain, Symptom Control and Palliative Care. 2007; Volume 5, Number 2. [1]

^ Huskisson EC. Measurement of pain. J Rheumatol 1982; 9:768-769.
^ Melzack R. The McGill pain questionnaire: major properties and scoring method. Pain 1975; 1:277-299.
^ Measurement of pain., Katz J, Melzack R. , Surg Clin North Am. 1999 Apr;79(2):231-52. PMID: 10352653
^ Gracely RH et al. New Methods of pain measurement and their application to pain control. Int Dent J. 1978;28(1):52-65.
^ The Faces Pain Scale - Revised (English, French and twenty-four other languages), Carl L von Baeyer, August 2005.
^ Bieri D, Reeve R, Champion GD, Addicoat L and Ziegler J. The Faces Pain Scale for the self-assessment of the severity of pain experienced by children: Development, initial validation and preliminary investigation for ratio scale properties. Pain 1990;41:139-150.
^ Jensen MP, Karoly P, O’Riordan EF, Bland F Jr & Burns RS (1989) The subjective experience of acute pain. An assessment of the utility of 10 indices. Clin J Pain 5: 153–159.
^ Jensen MP, Turner JA & Romano JM (1994) What is the maximum number of levels needed in pain intensity measurement? Pain 58: 387–392.
^ Wong DL, Baker C. Pain in children: comparison of assessment scales. Pediatr Nurs 1988;14:9-17.
^ The Numeric Rating Scale for Clinical Pain Measurement: A Ratio Measure?, Craig T. Hartrick, Juliann P. Kovan, Sharon Shapiro, Pain Practice 3 (4), 310–316 doi:10.1111/j.1530-7085.2003.03034.x, Dec. 2003

References

Cleeland C, Ryan K (1994). "Pain assessment: global use of the Brief Pain Inventory". Ann Acad Med Singapore. 23 (2): 129–38. PMID 8080219.
Herr K, Mobily P, Kohout F, Wagenaar D (1998). "Evaluation of the Faces Pain Scale for use with the elderly". Clin J Pain. 14 (1): 29–38. PMID 9535311.{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
VA -- 'pain as the fifth vital sign'
A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF PAIN MEASUREMENT SCALES IN ACUTE BURN PATIENTS, Shailaja S. Jaywant, Anuradha V. Pai, The Indian Journal of Occupational Therapy : Vol. XXXV : No. 3, Dec. - March 2003-04.

[1] Huskisson EC. Measurement of pain. J Rheumatol 1982; 9:768-769.

[2] Melzack R. The McGill pain questionnaire: major properties and scoring method. Pain 1975; 1:277-299.

[3] Measurement of pain., Katz J, Melzack R. , Surg Clin North Am. 1999 Apr;79(2):231-52. PMID: 10352653

[4] Gracely RH et al. New Methods of pain measurement and their application to pain control. Int Dent J. 1978;28(1):52-65.

[5] The Faces Pain Scale - Revised (English, French and twenty-four other languages), Carl L von Baeyer, August 2005.

[6] Bieri D, Reeve R, Champion GD, Addicoat L and Ziegler J. The Faces Pain Scale for the self-assessment of the severity of pain experienced by children: Development, initial validation and preliminary investigation for ratio scale properties. Pain 1990;41:139-150.

[7] Jensen MP, Karoly P, O’Riordan EF, Bland F Jr & Burns RS (1989) The subjective experience of acute pain. An assessment of the utility of 10 indices. Clin J Pain 5: 153–159.

[8] Jensen MP, Turner JA & Romano JM (1994) What is the maximum number of levels needed in pain intensity measurement? Pain 58: 387–392.

[9] Wong DL, Baker C. Pain in children: comparison of assessment scales. Pediatr Nurs 1988;14:9-17.

[10] The Numeric Rating Scale for Clinical Pain Measurement: A Ratio Measure?, Craig T. Hartrick, Juliann P. Kovan, Sharon Shapiro, Pain Practice 3 (4), 310–316 doi:10.1111/j.1530-7085.2003.03034.x, Dec. 2003

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