The Influence of Examiner Gender on Responses to Tonic Heat Pain Assessments: A Preliminary Investigation

McDougall, Jessica; Bailey, Nicole G. N.; Banga, Rohan; Linde, Lukas D; Kramer, John L. K.

doi:10.3389/fpain.2021.729860

Cited by 8 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Another study, where pressure stimuli was used, shows that men showed higher average pain thresholds when tested by a female experimenter 49 . Interestingly, heat pain thresholds were not shown to be significantly influenced by experimenter gender 50 . For this reason, in future studies it is recommended to investigate the role of experimenter gender on pain thresholds produced via WASP electrodes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

How to make calibration less painful -- a proposition of an automatic, reliable and time-efficient procedure.

Świder

Bruña

Moratti

2023

Preprint

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In neurophysiological pain studies, multiple types of calibration methods are used to quantify the individual pain sensation stimuli. However, such studies often lack calibration procedure implementation, have a vague protocol description, do not provide data quality quantification, and omit required control for gender pain differences. All this hampers study repetition and interexperimental comparisons. Moreover, typical calibration procedures require a high number of stimulations which may cause participants’ discomfort and stimuli habituation. To overcome those shortcomings, we present an automatic staircase pain calibration method for A-delta-specific stimulation adjusted to the magnetoencephalography environment. We provide an in-depth data analysis of the collected self-reports from seventy healthy volunteers (37 males) and propose a method based on a dynamic truncated linear regression model (tLRM). We compare its estimates for the sensation (t), and pain (T) thresholds, as well as for the mid-pain stimulation (MP), with those calculated using a traditional threshold method and standard linear regression models. Compared to the other threshold methods, tLRM exhibits higher R2 and requires 36% fewer stimuli application and has significantly higher t and lower T and MP intensities. Regarding sex differences, both lower t and T were found for females compared to males, regardless of the calibration method. The proposed tLRM method quantifies the quality of the calibration procedure, minimizes its duration and invasiveness, as well as provides validation of linearity between stimuli intensity and subjective scores, making it an enabling technique for further studies. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of control for gender in pain studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 85%

How to make calibration less painful -- a proposition of an automatic, reliable and time-efficient procedure.

Świder

Bruña

Moratti

2023

Preprint

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“…Another study, where pressure stimuli were used, shows that men showed higher average pain thresholds when tested by a female experimenter (Gijsbers & Nicholson, 2005). Interestingly, heat pain thresholds were not shown to be significantly influenced by experimenter sex (McDougall et al., 2021). Therefore, future studies should investigate the impact of experimenter sex on pain induced by WASP electrodes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to make calibration less painful—A proposition for an automatic, reliable and time‐efficient procedure

Świder,

Moratti,

Bruña

2024

Psychophysiology

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In behavioral and neurophysiological pain studies, multiple types of calibration methods are used to quantify the individual pain sensation stimuli. Often, studies lack a detailed calibration procedure description, data linearity, and quality quantification and omit required control for sex pain differences. This hampers study repetition and interexperimental comparisons. Moreover, typical calibration procedures require a high number of stimulations, which may cause discomfort and stimuli habituation among participants. To overcome those shortcomings, we present an automatic calibration procedure with a novel stimuli estimation method for intraepidermal stimulation. We provide an in‐depth data analysis of the collected self‐reports from 70 healthy volunteers (37 males) and propose a method based on a dynamic truncated linear regression model (tLRM). We compare its estimates for the sensation (t) and pain (T) thresholds and mid‐pain stimulation (MP), with those calculated using traditional estimation methods and standard linear regression models. Compared to the other methods, tLRM exhibits higher R2 and requires 36% fewer stimuli applications and has significantly higher t intensity and lower T and MP intensities. Regarding sex differences, t and T were found to be lower for females compared to males, regardless of the estimation method. The proposed tLRM method quantifies the calibration procedure quality, minimizes its duration and invasiveness, and provides validation of linearity between stimuli intensity and subjective scores, making it an enabling technique for further studies. Moreover, our results highlight the importance of control for sex in pain studies.

show abstract

“…On the other hand, another study, where pleasure stimuli was used, shows that men showed higher average pain thresholds when tested by female experimenter (Gijsbers and Nicholson, 2005). Interestingly, heat pain thresholds were not shown to be significantly influenced by experimenter gender (McDougall et al, 2021). For this reason, in future studies it is recommended to investigate the role of experimenter gender on pain thresholds produced via WASP electrodes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to make calibration less painful – a proposition of an automatic, reliable and time-efficient procedure

Świder

Bruña

Moratti

2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: The description of the calibration in pain studies is scarce. This study provides an in-depth analysis and proposes an automatic pain-threshold calibration that quantifies its correctness, minimizes its duration and invasiveness, and considers validation of linearity between stimuli intensity and Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) values. Methods: 70 healthy volunteers (37 males) underwent a staircase calibration method adjusted for A-delta specific intraepidermal electrical stimulation. The sensation (t) and pain thresholds (T) intensities were calculated using: the traditional threshold method (TM), a linear regression model (LRM), and two variants of a proposed truncated LRM (tLRM). The tLRM analyses data up to an optimal point, chosen according to the maximum goodness-of-fit value (R2). The optimal value of R2 and the convergence based on the regression line gradient formed the base for rejection criteria of failed procedure. Then, we compared the different methods for thresholds assessment as well as mid-painful stimulation (MP), equivalent to 1.5*T or NRS equal to 8, using repeated measures ANOVA. Results: Four participants were rejected according to our criteria. tLRM methods exhibit higher R2 than LRM with 36% less stimuli application. Compared to other methods, tLRM result in significantly higher t and lower T and MP intensities. Last, significantly lower t and T were found for female compared to men, regardless of the calibration method. Conclusions: The proposed method of calibration reduces the number of stimuli delivered and can be easily adapted to other simulation modalities. However, future investigation is recommended using adaptive LRM fitting and verification of reliability.

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The Influence of Examiner Gender on Responses to Tonic Heat Pain Assessments: A Preliminary Investigation

Cited by 8 publications

References 30 publications

How to make calibration less painful -- a proposition of an automatic, reliable and time-efficient procedure.

How to make calibration less painful -- a proposition of an automatic, reliable and time-efficient procedure.

How to make calibration less painful—A proposition for an automatic, reliable and time‐efficient procedure

How to make calibration less painful – a proposition of an automatic, reliable and time-efficient procedure

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