Measurement of pain in fibromyalgia in the clinic and laboratory.
Fibromyalgia involves constant aching pain throughout the body and acute pain at widely distributed tender points. This review emphasizes the different aspects of the pain experience which are assessed by verbal questionnaires, analysis of descriptive adjectives, numerical and verbal category scales and visual analogue scales. There is a need for studies which utilize ratio scale techniques to measure the different components of the pain experience and which explore a wider range of behavioral and functional measures. Laboratory data on responsiveness at tender and nontender points, examined with respect to adaptation level and hypervigilance theories, suggest that patients with fibromyalgia are overly reactive to external events which other groups, both pain free and pain suffering, find innocuous.
Rollman
G B
GB
Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario, London, Canada.
D001519:Behavior; D005356:Fibromyalgia / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D006801:Humans; D009132:Muscles / Q000503:physiopathology; D010146:Pain / Q000503:physiopathology; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D013577:Syndrome