[Quantitative assessment of pain tolerance]

Pain tolerance was assessed in 44 volunteers by the analysis of their reports during blood collection using a 12-point verbal rating scale. Thereafter, pain intensity in response to 5 successive pricks was measured with a mechanical algesimeter, and the participants of the study were asked to evaluate pain sensation based on a 0-100 score visual-analogous scale. The test was discontinued as soon as a patient reported painful feeling in excess of 50 scores. Twenty nine patients passed all the five tests while 11, 2, and 2 were able to tolerate 4, 3, and 2 challenges respectively. It was shown that the results of self-evaluation of painful sensation based on the verbal rating scale correlated with the number of tolerated test challenges. There was no significant correlation between the described signs. It is concluded that the methods for the assessment of pain tolerance described in this paper make it possible to predict the behaviour of a group as a whole but not of individual subjects.