title: A call for standardizing the clinical rating of pain intensity using a 0 to 10 rating scale.
abstract: Pain is difficult to measure, regardless of etiology. Furthermore, the measurement of pain is complicated by variation in the use of visual analogue scales as well as other pain assessment measures. This brief article reviews situations contributing to confusion regarding pain intensity measures and argues for consistency in its measurements with adults not experiencing cognitive disorders in the clinical setting.
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 27599-7460, USA.
authors.forename: J A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Dalton
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: McNaull
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D015982:Bias; D003142:Communication; D003266:Continuity of Patient Care; D017408:Guidelines as Topic; D006801:Humans; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000592:standards*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results