Open AccessThe visual time analog scale: simple, novel measurement approach to assess pain in patients with chronic pain
Author(s) -
Akiko Okifuji,
Reiko Mitsunaga,
Yuri Kida,
Gary Donaldson
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
pain management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.402
H-Index - 21
eISSN - 1758-1877
pISSN - 1758-1869
DOI - 10.2217/pmt-2020-0036
Subject(s) - medicine , visual analogue scale , chronic pain , physical therapy , rating scale , reliability (semiconductor) , pain assessment , physical medicine and rehabilitation , pain management , psychology , developmental psychology , power (physics) , physics , quantum mechanics
Aim: We conducted a preliminary evaluation of a newly developed, time-based visual time analog (VITA) scale for measuring pain in chronic pain patients. Materials & methods: 40 patients with chronic back pain rated their pain over four visits using numerical (pain) rating scale (NRS) and VITA assessing pain intensity by distributing the amount of time spent on 'not aware of pain' (blue), 'aware of nothing but pain' (red) and time in between (yellow). Results: The NRS scores were correlated with the VITA Red but not with VITA Blue. The psychometric analyses revealed that VITA achieved greater reliability and sensitivity than did NRS. Conclusion: The results provide preliminary support for VITA scale for assessing pain intensity in patients with chronic pain.