Technical validity, concurrent validity, reliability, and treatment sensitivity of an innovative low-cost pain algometer in healthy adults and patients with discogenic sciatica

OBJECTIVE: Valid, reliable, and low-cost tools to assess pain can enhance quantitative pain assessment in multiple settings. Therefore, we assessed the technical validity, concurrent validity, reliability, and treatment sensitivity of the Egyptian algometer, which is a low-cost pain assessment tool. We also examined clinicians' inter- and intra-rater reliability with this device. METHODS: = 20, 27.31 ± 4.13 years), treatment sensitivity in 9 participants with discogenic sciatica (45.11 ± 14.77 years), and inter- and intra-rater reliability of 3 physical therapists who conducted all the tests. A combination of intra-class correlation coefficients (ICC(2,1) and ICC (2,3)) and Bland-Altman plots were used for all the analyses. RESULTS: = 0.008 to 0.021; and 95% CI = -0.176 to -2.275; Cohen's d = 0.29-0.39). DISCUSSION: The Egyptian algorithm is a low-cost, valid, and reliable device to assess pain in healthy young adults. Additionally, the Egyptian algorithm can effectively capture pain treatment response in individuals with discogenic sciatica.