Do health care professionals underestimate severe pain more often than mild pain? Statistical pitfalls using a data simulation model

Rationale  When comparing patients’ pain ratings with the health care professional's conception of pain assessed by Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) ratings, statistical problems arise. Method and Result  In this data simulation study we have shown that the tendency for health care professionals to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of evaluation in clinical practice 2005-10, Vol.11 (5), p.438-443
Main Authors: Idvall, Ewa, Brudin, Lars
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
artificial correlation
Health Personnel - psychology
Humans
MEDICIN
MEDICINE
Models, Theoretical
Oldham plots
Pain - classification
Pain Measurement
Patients - psychology
pseudocorrelation
regression to the mean
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Summary:Rationale  When comparing patients’ pain ratings with the health care professional's conception of pain assessed by Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) ratings, statistical problems arise. Method and Result  In this data simulation study we have shown that the tendency for health care professionals to underestimate severe pain compared with mild pain is probably not attributed to difficulties in judging severe pain more often than mild but the result of professionals having a different and often narrower distribution of their ratings compared with patients.
ISSN:1356-1294
1365-2753
1365-2753
DOI:10.1111/j.1365-2753.2005.00554.x