Defining mild, moderate, and severe pain in young people with physical disabilities

Abstract

Purpose To identify the cutoffs that are most suitable for classifying average and worst pain intensity as being mild, moderate, or severe in young people with physical disabilities. Method Survey study using a convenience sample of 113 young people (mean age = 14.19; SD= 2.9; age range: 8–20) with physical disabilities (namely, spinal cord injury, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, limb deficiency (acquired or congenital), or neuromuscular disease). Results The findings support a non-linear association between pain intensity and pain interference. In addition, the optimal cutoffs for classifying average and worst pain as mild, moderate, or severe differed. For average pain, the best cutoffs were: 0–3 for mild, 4–6 for moderate and 7–10 for severe pain, whereas the optimal classification for worst pain was 0–4 for mild, 5–6 for moderate, and 7–10 for severe pain. Conclusions The findings provide important information that may be used to help make decisions regarding pain treatment in young people with disabilities and also highlight the need to use different cutoffs for classifying pain intensity in young people with disabilities than those that have been suggested for adults with chronic pain.

Digital Rehabilitation for Acute Low Back Pain: A Prospective Longitudinal Cohort Study

“…According to the pain thresholds proposed by Miró et al, 63 risk subgroups were created. Besides pain, these also differed on ODI (p < 0.001), analgesic consumption (p < 0.001), surgery intent (p = 0.011), FABQ (p < 0.001) and productivity impairment (p < 0.001), but not on mental health scores (p = 0.493 and p = 0.094, for anxiety and depression, respectively) ( Supplementary Table S1 ).…”

Ecological momentary intervention to enhance emotion regulation in healthcare workers via smartphone: a randomized controlled trial protocol

“…The clinical alarms in Table 2 were set after a series of meetings with experts in clinical psychology and mood disorders. For the cut-offs of severe, moderate, and mild levels of symptomatology, we followed the recommendations from past research (0–4 for mild, 5–6 for moderate, and 7–10 for severe) [ 90 ]. Considering the results on ER strategy choice research [ 49 , 53 ], when participants report a low-moderate emotional intensity, interventions related to cognitive reappraisal and behavioral change will be proposed.…”

Do Commonly Used Measures of Pain Intensity Only Reflect Pain Intensity in Youths With Bothersome Pain and a Physical Disability?

“…Data for this study and analyses came from a survey on the impact of pain in young people with a physical disability. A number of articles have been published using data from the original survey study, [e.g., (22, 23)], however none of these works examined the potential influence of psychosocial factors on pain intensity scores of the measures that were administered to participants.…”

“…This is important because some of these scales, such as the VRS and faces scales, are more likely to be used than others when working with young people. In this respect, a recent study has shown differences in how adults and youths designate pain intensity as mild, moderate or severe (23). Therefore, research evaluating the potential influence of non-pain intensity factors on the score of self-report questionnaires with samples of youths with pain is warranted.…”