September 1, 1983Pain
The validation of visual analogue scales as ratio scale measures for chronic and experimental pain
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Discussion
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Implication
Experimental study demonstrates ratio scale validity of visual analogue scales for sensory and affective pain in chronic patients and healthy individuals, indicating accurate pain quantification.
Key Points
- To determine whether visual analogue scales (VAS) assessing sensory intensity and affective magnitude function as valid ratio scales for both experimental and chronic pain.
- Applied six noxious thermal stimuli (43, 45, 47, 48, 49, and 51 °C) for 5 seconds to the forearm using a contact thermode in chronic pain patients and healthy volunteers.
- Assessed VAS sensory and affective ratings against mathematical power functions and evaluated their ability to predict estimated sensation and affect ratios between temperature pairs.
- Tested internal consistency across experimental pain VAS ratings, chronic pain VAS ratings, and direct temperature matches to three chronic pain levels.
- Sensory and affective VAS responses conformed to power functions with exponents of 2.1 and 3.8, respectively, showing similar response functions between chronic pain patients and healthy volunteers.
- Power functions accurately predicted estimated sensation and affective ratios for standard temperature pairs (e.g., 47 and 49 °C), confirming ratio scale properties.
- Sensory intensity ratings of experimental pain, ratings of different chronic pain levels, and direct thermal matching were internally consistent.
Cite This Study
Price et al. (1983) studied this question.