A card sort method for pain assessment in gynaecology: a multidimensional approach

This paper considers the problem of measuring the subjective report of pain. In view of the limitations of existing approaches an alternative method of pain assessment is proposed. This approach derives from a multidimensional concept of pain. The test is in the form of pair comparisons and is designed to measure different pain dimensions. Sufficient consensus was found over the meaning and relevance of words describing intrauterine device related pain and primary dysmenorrhoea to allow a standard test to be developed. The reliability of the test was found to be high and its clinical advantages promising. It was not possible to provide an adequate evaluation of the test's validity. In view of these findings a longer-term treatment evaluation study is currently being undertaken in order to establish this.