Clinical commentary advocates replacing numeric pain rating scales in clinical practice, highlighting functional assessments as a more reliable clinical tool.
Although the 10-point rating scale is widely used to assess pain, it is unreliable. What is a level 7 for one person might be a level 9 for someone else. What is the difference within the same patient between a 6 and a 7? Will this trip up the patient if there are inconsistencies in the patient’s chart? It is time the 10-point scale be abandoned in favor of a reproducible, reliable scale based on what is really critical: functionality. A functional scale is the best clinical tool to assess pain since many patients with painful diseases are reporting that they are not believed in the doctor's office. Doctors like concrete operationalized data, and this is the way to do it.
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Kline et al. (2026) studied this question.
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