title: Self-reported pain sensitivity: lack of correlation with pain threshold and tolerance.
abstract: Many recent studies and several reviews have highlighted the potential clinical applications of experimental pain testing (e.g., for predicting post-surgical pain, treatment responsiveness, etc.). However, the implementation of quantitative sensory testing of pain sensitivity on a broad scale is limited by requirements of time, equipment, and expertise, and their associated costs. One reasonable question is whether one can obtain, via self-report, a valid index of an individual's pain sensitivity and pain tolerance. We analyzed data from a large number of subjects (n=505) who had undergone standardized thermal pain testing, and found that while higher self-reported pain sensitivity was associated with higher scores on a measure of anxiety, no relationship was observed between subjects' self-report of pain sensitivity and subjects' actual pain threshold or tolerance. These findings suggest that circumventing psychophysical pain testing by assessing individuals' self-reported pain sensitivity is unlikely to be a useful strategy.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21287, USA. redwar10@jhmi.edu
authors.forename: Robert R
authors.initials: RR
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: Roger B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Fillingim
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015588:Observer Variation; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology / Q000523:psychology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods* / Q000523:psychology*; D017288:Pain Threshold / Q000502:physiology*; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012647:Self-Assessment; D013223:Statistics as Topic; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires