Medical Judgments Across the Range of Reported Pain Severity: Clinician and Lay Perspectives

While increasing evidence suggests that observers discount high-severity chronic pain, factors that occasion such discounting are poorly understood, particularly regarding health provider vs lay perspectives.

This study examined the effects of supporting medical evidence and comorbid psychological distress (pain behavior) on medical student and lay clinical judgments of increasingly severe patient pain reports.

In a 2 × 2 × 2 × (7) mixed between- and within-subject design, participants (medical students vs lay) made clinical judgments after reading vignettes describing a hypothetical patient that varied in levels of medical evidence and pain behavior (low vs high) and pain severity (4/10-10/10).

Fourth-year medical students (N = 115) and lay persons in the community (N = 300) participated in this research.

While both medical student and lay judgments plateaued at high levels of pain severity, judgments regarding cause (medical vs psychological), treatment (opioid prescription), and disability showed growing divergence as levels of reported pain severity increased. Divergence relative to medical and psychological causes of pain was found irrespective of the level of supporting medical evidence; divergence relative to opioid treatment and support for a disability claim was found when supporting medical evidence was low.

The results indicate differing expectations of chronic pain treatment for health care providers relative to the lay public that could impact clinical care, especially at high pain severity levels, where lay expectations diverge significantly from those of health professionals.