Articles: pain-measurement.
-
Multiple large longitudinal cohorts provide opportunities to address questions about predictors of pain and pain trajectories, even when not anticipated in the design of the historical databases. This focus article uses 2 empirical examples to illustrate the processes of assessing the measurement properties of data from large cohort studies to answer questions about pain. In both examples, data were screened to select candidate variables that captured the impact of chronic pain on self-care activities, productivity, and social activities. ⋯ In conjunction with its Supplementary Material, this focus article aims to encourage exploration of these valuable prospectively collected data to support researchers to make explicit the relationships between items in the databases and constructs of interest in pain research and to use empirical methods to estimate the possible biases in these variables. PERSPECTIVE: This focus article outlines a theory-driven approach for fitting new measurement models to data from large cohort studies and evaluating their psychometric properties. This aims to help researchers develop an empirical understanding of the gains and limitations connected with the process of repurposing the data stored in these datasets.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
The use of abstract animations and a graphical body image for assessing pain outcomes among adults with sickle cell disease.
Painimation, a novel digital pain assessment tool, allows patients to communicate their pain quality, intensity, and location using abstract animations (painimations) and a paintable body image. This study determined the construct validity of painimations and body image measures by testing correlations with validated pain outcomes in adults with sickle cell disease (SCD). Analyses used baseline data from a multisite randomized trial of 359 adults with SCD and chronic pain. ⋯ This demonstrates animations and body image data can assess SCD pain severity, potentially with more accuracy than a 0-10 scale. Future research will explore whether Painimation can differentiate biological and psychosocial pain components. PERSPECTIVE: This article presents the preliminary construct validity of Painimation in SCD by examining the associations of "painimations" and body area image data with daily e-diary and traditional self-report pain outcomes.
-
Tactile-induced analgesia (TIA) is a phenomenon in which different types of tactile stimulation alleviate pain via different mechanisms including empathy. As TIA plays an essential role in therapeutic situations and clinical conditions, it is crucial to determine whether specific tactile stimulations confer distinct benefits. ⋯ This article explores the effectiveness of touch-based pain relief methods and their association with empathetic therapeutic interactions. The study emphasizes the significance of positive therapeutic interactions in facilitating tactile-induced analgesia.
-
Chronic pain is known to be an important construct in clinical practice and a particular form of chronic pain, high-impact chronic pain (HICP), has gained recent interest and attention by pain clinicians, epidemiologists, and clinical researchers. The purpose of our Topical Review is to describe the historical development of measures of HICP and to explore the psychometric properties of HICP as well as to present alternative measurement methods. ⋯ This work takes the position that current methods of measuring high impact chronic pain (HICP) likely contain substantial error. We have endorsed an alternative approach for several psychometrically grounded reasons. We recommend that future work consider the discrete latent variable framework for dichotomous measures of HICP and the continuous latent variable framework for continuous measures of HICP. The paper provides illustrative examples of these methods for a different patient reported measure that is lacking a gold standard, much like HICP measures.
-
Randomized Controlled Trial
Ultrasound-guided Double-point Versus Single-point Serratus Anterior Plane Block for Modified Radical Mastectomy: A Randomized Controlled Trial.
The double-point serratus anterior plane block (SAPB) covers more area, including the axilla, than the single-point approach, potentially offering better pain relief after modified radical mastectomy (MRM). The objective of this study were to evaluate the clinical outcomes of these 2 procedures for patients treated with MRMs. ⋯ Double-point SAPB offers wider anesthetic spread but shows no significant clinical advantage in pain or axillary comfort over single-point SAPB after MRM.