• Chitra Lalloo, Jennifer N Stinson, Stephen C Brown, Fiona Campbell, Lisa Isaac, and James L Henry.
• *Medical Sciences PhD Graduate Program ¶Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences, McMaster University, Hamilton Departments of †Anaesthesia and Pain Medicine ‡Child Health Evaluative Sciences, The Hospital for Sick Children §Lawrence S. Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing ∥Department of Anaesthesia, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
• Clin J Pain. 2014 Nov 1;30(11):934-43.

ObjectivesTo evaluate clinical feasibility of the Pain-QuILT (previously known as the Iconic Pain Assessment Tool) from the perspective of adolescents with chronic pain and members of their interdisciplinary health team. The Pain-QuILT (PQ), a web-based tool that records the visual self-report of sensory pain in the form of time-stamped records, was directly compared with standard interview questions that were transformed to a paper-based tool.MethodsQualitative, semi-structured interviews were used to refine the PQ. Adolescents with chronic pain aged 12 to 18 years used the PQ and comparator tool (randomized order) to self-report pain before a scheduled clinic appointment, and then took part in a semi-structured interview. The health team used these pain reports (PQ and comparator) during patient appointments, and later participated in focus group interviews. Interview audio recordings were transcribed verbatim and underwent a simple line-by-line content analysis to identify key concepts.ResultsA total of 17 adolescents and 9 health team members completed the study. All adolescents felt that the PQ was easy to use and understand. The median time required for completion of the PQ and comparator tool was 3.3 and 3.6 minutes, respectively. Overall, 15/17 (88%) of adolescents preferred the PQ to self-report their pain versus the comparator. The health team indicated that the PQ was a clinically useful tool and identified minor barriers to implementation.DiscussionConsultations with adolescents and their health team indicate that the PQ is a clinically feasible tool for eliciting detailed self-report records of the sensory experience of chronic pain.

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