Articles: pain-measurement.
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Health Qual Life Out · Apr 2016
Randomized Controlled TrialRelationship between pain relief, reduction in pain-associated sleep interference, and overall impression of improvement in patients with postherpetic neuralgia treated with extended-release gabapentin.
Postherpetic neuralgia (PHN) interferes with patients' quality of life, and disturbed sleep is a prevalent complaint. Pain-associated sleep interference in turn enhances pain and/or reduces pain tolerance. Therefore, reducing sleep interference by pain, in addition to pain control, may improve patient care. To address this notion, we characterized relationships among changes in pain intensity, sleep interference, and overall impression of improvement in PHN patients treated with gastroretentive gabapentin (G-GR). ⋯ Reductions in pain intensity and in BPISI were correlated, and both also correlated with overall impression of improvement for patients with PHN treated with G-GR. Both pain relief and improvement BPISI independently predicted improvement in PGIC. For optimal patient care, clinicians should consider reducing the impact of pain on quality of sleep as well as overall pain reduction.
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The Journal of urology · Apr 2016
Pain and Urinary Symptoms Should Not Be Combined into 1 Score: Psychometric Findings from the MAPP Research Network.
The purpose of this study was to create symptom indexes, that is scores derived from questionnaires to accurately and efficiently measure symptoms of interstitial cystitis/bladder pain syndrome and chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, collectively referred to as urological chronic pelvic pain syndromes. We created these indexes empirically by investigating the structure of symptoms using exploratory factor analysis. ⋯ Exploratory factor analyses suggested that the 2 factors pain severity and urinary severity provided the best psychometric description of items in GUPI, ICSI and ICPI. These factors were used to create 2 symptom indexes for pain and urinary symptoms. Pain, but not urinary symptoms, was associated with symptoms of depression on multiple regression analysis, suggesting that these symptoms may impact patients with urological chronic pelvic pain syndromes differently (B ± SE for pain severity = 0.24 ± 0.04, 95% CI 0.16-0.32, β = 0.32, p <0.001). Our results suggest that pain and urinary symptoms should be assessed separately rather than combined into 1 total score. Total scores that combine the separate factors of pain and urinary symptoms into 1 score may be limited for clinical and research purposes.
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Multicenter Study
Occurrence, Characteristics, and Predictors of Pain in Patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease.
Few studies have provided a detailed characterization of pain in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The aims of this cross-sectional study were to describe the occurrence, intensity, locations, and level of interference associated with pain, as well as pain relief; to identify differences in demographic, clinical, and symptom characteristics between COPD patients with and without pain; and to determine which demographic, clinical, and symptom characteristics were associated with average pain, worst pain, and pain interference. A total of 258 patients with COPD provided information on demographic characteristics; comorbidities; respiratory parameters including dyspnea; body mass index; and symptom characteristics (i.e., anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and fatigue). ⋯ In addition, higher number of pain locations was associated with higher average and higher worst pain severity scores. Findings from this study confirm that pain is a significant problem and highlights the need for specific pain management interventions for patients with COPD. More research is needed about specific pain characteristics and symptoms to gain an increased knowledge about the causes of pain in these patients.
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Objectives were to determine at completion of a multidisciplinary pain program: 1) what percentage of chronic low back pain (CLBP) patients had improved at 30% or more (minimal clinically important difference [MCID]) and by 1.5 cm or more (minimal important change [MIC]) on the visual analog scale (VAS) and 2) whether that improvement is associated with pain matching (PM), pain threshold (PTRE), and pain tolerance (PTOL) improvements. ⋯ A significant percentage of CLBP patients were at MCID and at MIC at completion of multidisciplinary treatment. PM was associated with overall VAS improvement, while PTRE and PM were associated with MCID.
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Neurodegener Dis Manag · Apr 2016
ReviewThe use of facial expressions for pain assessment purposes in dementia: a narrative review.
Facial expressions convey reliable nonverbal signals about pain and thus are very useful for assessing pain in patients with limited communicative ability, such as patients with dementia. In this review, we present an overview of the available pain observation tools and how they make use of facial expressions. ⋯ The main focus is on disinhibition, apathy and emotional changes. Finally, an overview of theoretical considerations and practical implications is presented for assessing pain using facial expressions in clinical settings.