Anaesthesia
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
The reliability of a linear analogue for evaluating pain.
A linear analogue for rating pain with 10, 15 and 20 cm lines is significantly less variable than a 5 cm line (mean error of 15 cm line is 0-19%, 95% confidence limits for the group +/- 2% and an inood correlation between repeated ratins of a recalled pain distant in time. The variance of the rating is significantly less than the repeated rating of a random mark. ⋯ Pethidine 150 mg intramuscularly had no significant effect, tested 30 minutes after the administration, on the accuracy or reproducibility of the analogue rating. A linear analogue seems a suitable method of recording the patient's opion of a severe pain such as that of labour.