title: Taking into account the observers' uncertainty: a graduated approach to the credibility of the patient's pain evaluation.
abstract: This article presents two experiments aiming to investigate the adoption of a graduated measure to describe credibility attribution by observers who evaluate patients' pain accounts. A total of 160 medical students were required to express a credibility judgment on the pain intensity level of hypothetical patients. We used 16 vignettes based on a factorial mixed-design. Within-participants factors were the reported pain, the presence of a physical sign, the patient's facial expression and the patient's gender, and between-groups factors were the patient's age and the geographical distribution of the patient's name. Results confirm the well-established tendency not to believe patients' self-reports and provide information regarding the evaluators' uncertainty. The findings suggest that a graduated measure is useful for assessing the degree of uncertainty of the observers and subtle effects of different factors upon the judgment of patient's pain.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Milano-Bicocca, Piazza Ateneo Nuovo 1, 20126, Milano, Italy. p.rusconi3@campus.unimib.it
authors.forename: Patrice
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rusconi
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Riva
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Cherubini
authors.forename: Lorenzo
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Montali
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000367:Age Factors; D005149:Facial Expression; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D007558:Italy; D008297:Male; D009275:Names; D010146:Pain / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D012737:Sex Factors; D013337:Students, Medical / Q000523:psychology; D035501:Uncertainty; D055815:Young Adult