Comparison of pain measures in surgical patients

Numerous instruments have been developed for the measurement of pain with various clinical populations. This study was designed to compare pain measures for research in a sample of postoperative patients. The Brief Pain Inventory--Short Form (BPI-SF) was administered along with the Short-Form McGill Pain Questionnaire (SF-MPQ) and two visual analogue scales, one for pain while at rest (VAS-R) and one for pain upon movement (VAS-M), in random order, to 115 hospitalized patients twice following their surgery. An additional 29 patients completed the instruments once. Correlations between the visual analogue scales, BPI-SF, and SF-MPQ ranged from .33 to .76 (p < .01), suggesting that the instruments measure different aspects of pain and that instructions can influence the results. Recommendations for the selection of pain measures in patients experiencing acute pain and for future research are described.