Pain
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Multicenter Study Comparative Study
Comparison of pain syndromes associated with nervous or somatic lesions and development of a new neuropathic pain diagnostic questionnaire (DN4).
Few studies have directly compared the clinical features of neuropathic and non-neuropathic pains. For this purpose, the French Neuropathic Pain Group developed a clinician-administered questionnaire named DN4 consisting of both sensory descriptors and signs related to bedside sensory examination. This questionnaire was used in a prospective study of 160 patients presenting with pain associated with a definite neurological or somatic lesion. ⋯ The analysis of the psychometric properties of the DN4 questionnaire included: face validity, inter-rater reliability, factor analysis and logistic regression to identify the discriminant properties of items or combinations of items for the diagnosis of neuropathic pain. We found that a relatively small number of items are sufficient to discriminate neuropathic pain. The 10-item questionnaire developed in the present study constitutes a new diagnostic instrument, which might be helpful both in clinical research and daily practice.