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C. Richard Chapman, Ph.D., Director Department of Anesthesiology E-mail:
crc20@utah.edu Research Title: Improving the Measurement of Acute Pain |
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Research Description: Research Description: The focus of our project is improving the measurement of acute pain in postoperative and emergency department settings. Currently, the standard for pain assessment is the 11-point numerical rating scale. Analyses of data from multiple clinical domains show that such measures have very low precision. That is, a patient giving a pain rating of 6 might just as well be saying 9 or 3 because the error surrounding the pain rating is high. These measures work in clinical trials with large samples, but they are poorly suited for assessing and tracking pain in the individual patient in clinical settings. We are developing an alternative pain assessment tool based on advanced psychometric methods. If successful, it will produce a tool using pain word descriptors and achieve more precise pain assessment. The tool should facilitate assessment and management of the individual patient. Along with developing an improved tool for pain assessment, our project adva Does this research involve human subjects or animals? Yes If yes, what is the protocol number? 13196 10/2008 |
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