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Measuring clinical pain in chronic widespread pain: selected methodological issues
Michael Gendreau1, Michael R Hufford, Arthur A Stone
1Cypress Bioscience, Inc., 4350 Executive Drive, Suite 325, San Diego, CA 92121, USA.
Best Practice & Research. Clinical Rheumatology
|July 10, 2003
Summary
Methodological factors significantly impact clinical pain assessments. Understanding these biases, like recall bias and diary use, is crucial for accurate pain reporting and research.
Area of Science:
- Pain research
- Clinical methodology
- Patient-reported outcomes
Background:
- Accurate clinical pain assessment is vital for patient care and research.
- Empirical evidence shows patient pain reports are susceptible to methodological biases.
- Understanding these biases is key to improving pain data reliability.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review methodological factors influencing pain ratings.
- To examine recall bias, diary methods, and ecological momentary assessment.
- To discuss pain scaling and data analysis considerations in pain research.
Main Methods:
- Literature review of methodological issues affecting pain assessment.
- Analysis of data from a study using electronic diaries for real-time pain capture.
- Discussion of ecological momentary assessment and data analysis techniques.
Main Results:
- Methodological factors, including recall bias and diary type, systematically bias pain reports.
- Electronic diaries offer a method for capturing real-time pain data.
- Data analysis and scaling methods also influence pain assessment outcomes.
Conclusions:
- Methodological factors significantly affect the interpretation of patient pain experiences.
- Awareness and control of these factors are essential for valid pain research and clinical practice.
- Improved methods are needed to enhance the accuracy of clinical pain assessment.