Lack of interchangeability between visual analogue and verbal rating pain scales: a cross sectional description of pain etiology groups.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Rating scales like the visual analogue scale, VAS, and the verbal rating scale, VRS, are often used for pain assessments both in clinical work and in research, despite the lack of a gold standard. Interchangeability of recorded pain intensity captured in the two scales has been discussed earlier, but not in conjunction with taking the influence of pain etiology into consideration.

Methods

In this cross-sectional study, patients with their pain classified according to its etiology (chronic/idiopathic, nociceptive and neuropathic pain) were consecutively recruited for self-assessment of their actual pain intensity using a continuous VAS, 0-100, and a discrete five-category VRS. The data were analyzed with a non-parametric statistical method, suitable for comparison

SUBMITTER: Lund I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC1274324 | biostudies-literature | 2005 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature