title: Subjective easiness of pain assessment measures in older people.
abstract: Chronic pain is a significant health problem in older people. Easy-to-use measures of pain help detection and assessment of pain in general practice.
  
  
  
  To assess the subjective ease of use of self-report tools of pain among older home-dwelling people.
  
  
  
  Independently living people aged 75, 80 and 85 years subject to communal preventive home visits with chronic pain were invited to a clinical pain examination. At the visit subjects were asked to assess their pain with 4 self-report tools; VAS (visual analog scale), NRS (numerical rating scale), PainDETECT and BPI (brief pain inventory), and at the end report the subjective ease of use for these measures.
  
  
  
  Altogether 106 subjects (28 males, 78 females) consented to participate in the clinical study. Musculoskeletal pain was the most common cause of chronic nociceptive pain, being present in 88 (83%) subjects. The most common manifestations were spinal disorders and osteoarthritis of the hip or knee. The multidimensional pain scales (PainDETECT and BPI) were rated easier to use than the unidimensional measures (VAS and NRS), although all the measures were assessed as "quite easy" to use in general. In comparison with the other measures, PainDETECT was significantly easier to use. Low MMSE explained the difficulty of using PainDETECT.
  
  
  
  The VAS, NRS, PainDETECT and the BPI appear to be suitable pain measures to use for older community-dwelling people in general practice.
authors.affiliation: Kirkkonummi Health Center, Kirkkonummi, Finland; Unit of Primary Health Care, Helsinki University Central Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland. Electronic address: susanna.rapo-pylkko@kirkkonummi.fi.
authors.forename: Susanna
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Rapo-Pylkkö
authors.affiliation: Mutual Insurance Company Etera, Helsinki, Finland; Department of Neurosurgery, Helsinki University Hospital, Helsinki, Finland.
authors.forename: Maija
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haanpää
authors.affiliation: Unit of Primary Health Care, Helsinki University Central Hospital and University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland; General Practice, School of Primary, Aboriginal and Rural Health Care, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia.
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liira
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D059350:Chronic Pain / Q000453:epidemiology; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications; D005260:Female; D005387:Finland / Q000453:epidemiology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*; D057566:Self Report
keywords: Assessment; Chronic pain; Community-dwelling; Self-report