Pain
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This study examined the effects of increasing the number of assessments on the reliability and validity of measures of average pain intensity. Two hundred chronic pain patients completed 2 weeks of hourly pain ratings. ⋯ Also, and as expected, the results indicate that a single rating of pain intensity is not adequately reliable or valid as a measure of average pain. However, a composite pain intensity score calculated from an average of 12 ratings across 4 days demonstrated adequate reliability and excellent validity as a measure of the average pain in this sample of chronic pain patients.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)