Related Experiment Video
Updated: May 5, 2026
Determining Pain Detection and Tolerance Thresholds Using an Integrated, Multi-Modal Pain Task Battery
Published on: April 14, 2016
Single-day pain assessments as clinical outcomes: not so fast
Arthur A Stone1, Stefan Schneider, Joan E Broderick
1*Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY †ERT Inc., Pittsburgh, PA.
Introduction:
Pain diaries are important tools for clinical trials and optimal assay sensitivity of outcomes derived from these diaries is a worthwhile goal. Jensen and colleagues recently reported results suggesting that single-day diary-based outcomes could possibly be as psychometrically sound as outcomes based on taking the average of many diaries.
Materials And Methods:
In this paper, we attempted to replicate those results with several diary data sets.
Results And Discussion:
We come to a different conclusion than that advanced by Jensen and colleagues and conclude that their results were unusual in that very high test-retest reliability among days was found. With our 4 diary data sets we find that aggregating multiple diaries yields more reliable outcomes and improved sensitivity. We suggest that using single-day diaries will often lead to underpowered studies and that pretesting is advised before adopting single-day diaries. We also suggest that other researchers replicate these findings within their diary-based clinical trials.
