title: Do health care professionals underestimate severe pain more often than mild pain? Statistical pitfalls using a data simulation model.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  When comparing patients' pain ratings with the health care professional's conception of pain assessed by Visual Analogue Scales (VAS) ratings, statistical problems arise.
  
  
  RESULTS
  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.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medicine and Care, Division of Nursing Science, Faculty of Health Sciences, Linköping, Sweden. evaid@ltkalmar.se
authors.forename: Ewa
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Idvall
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Brudin
mesh_terms: D006282:Health Personnel / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D010146:Pain / Q000145:classification*; D010147:Pain Measurement; D010361:Patients / Q000523:psychology*