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Updated: May 15, 2026
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Quantifying Pain Location and Intensity with Multimodal Pain Body Diagrams
Published on: July 7, 2023
Pain drawings in somatoform-functional pain
Niklaus Egloff1, Rafael J A Cámara, Roland von Känel
1Division of Psychosomatic Medicine, Department of General Internal Medicine, Inselspital, Bern University Hospital and University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland. niklaus.egloff@insel.ch
BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders
|December 22, 2012
Summary
Pain drawings can help identify somatoform-functional pain. Specific graphic patterns, including mark number, length, and symmetry, are highly sensitive and specific indicators.
Area of Science:
- Medical diagnostics
- Pain management
- Psychosomatic medicine
Background:
- Pain drawings are a supplementary tool in pain evaluation.
- Distinctive graphic patterns may indicate somatoform-functional pain.
- Identifying specific criteria can aid in diagnosing somatoform-functional pain.
Purpose of the Study:
- To identify sensitive and specific graphic criteria in pain drawings.
- To differentiate somatoform-functional pain from somatic-nociceptive pain using drawings.
Main Methods:
- Compared 62 somatoform-functional pain patients with 49 somatic-nociceptive pain patients.
- Patients marked pain on body diagrams.
- Blinded investigator analyzed drawings using defined criteria.
Main Results:
- Identified 13 significant drawing criteria for somatoform-functional pain (p ≤ 0.001).
- A combination of total marks, longest mark length, and symmetric patterns showed high sensitivity and specificity.
- The ROC-curve area for this combination was 96.3%.
Conclusions:
- Pain drawings are an easily administered supplementary technique.
- This method aids in identifying somatoform-functional pain compared to somatic-nociceptive pain.
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