Comparasion of four different pain scales commonly prefered in pain management of adult turkish patient population

It is important to rate pain which has many unfavourable effects on human lifespan using a common language in terms of evaluation of pain management efficiency and the pain itself. Thus the first and the most important step of pain management is assesment of the pain. There are too many scales available rating pain intensity. Although many researches have been done to determine most accurate scale using in assesment of pain intensity none of the scales seem to solve this issue yet.İt is important to determine patients preferences and their reasons while using a pain scale. Furthermore, consistency of pain scales in assesment of pain intensity is also important. In these scales used for pain assesment, definite descriptions are required for patients to understand and reply correctly. As well as the efficiency of scales are defined by culturel and social parameters, patient?s way of living and properties such as sex; occupation; education level and illness also play important role in assesment of pain.In this study we aim to determine which of the most common scales frequently used in clinics such as VAS (Visual analogous scale), NRS (Numerical rating scale), FPS-R (smilies) and EQ-5D Numeric sclae (EuroVAS) are consistent to each other among chronic pain syndrom diagnosed Turkish population, which of them are more succesfull in assesment of pain in Turkish population and efficiency and usage advantages of scales among each other.Chronic pain diagnosed 132 patients in pain clinic of Celal Bayar University Faculty of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation whose ages above 18 years applied to this study. Verbal and written information were given to applied patients and their voluntary written approval was taken before study application.A questionnaire examining definitive properties of patients and VAS, NRS, FPS-R, EQ-5D pain scales were applied to patients. Age, sex, education, marriage status and occupation were questioned. Study was applied by a research assistant working at department of anesthesiology and reanimation using Smilies and Smilies interview technique.This study is a methodical research and applied analyzes are based on to test the reliability of 4 pain tools. In addition to definitive analyzes consist of number, ratio, averageand standard deviation, base and ceiling effect; in reliability analysis spearmen correlation analysis for quantitative variations and `kappa consistency? and `rate of agreement? for categorical variations were used.The average age of patients were 49,1± 14,6 and number of males was 35 (%26,5) while the number of females was 97 (%73,4). Duration avarage of diseaese was 59,2± 77,3 months. %58,3 majority of participants were primary school graduates. Most of the participants were married(%78,8) and %64,4 of women were housewifes.While mean pain scores compared to each other it was noticable that FPS-R was given highest score.In our study for the each scale base effect,percentange of those possibly took lowest from the scale, was found lower than %20 and in terms of ceiling effect best score was given from FPS-R. When asked to participants `which scale was easiest to complete?,? which one defined pain best? and `which one they will prefer in the future?; answer ratios showed FPS-R had to be highest reply completion ratio.In our study, education level compared with `feasibilty?, `pain description ability? and `preffered scale in the future?. The more education level increases the more FPS-R loses its importance relatively in terms of `feasibility?,?pain descriptor ability? and `preffered scale in the future?. In females while FPS-R showed higher correlation with other scales in males correlation of all scales were found high, no differences were found between scales. This was because males were significantly more educated than females.Moreover, when we looked relationship between age and scale points it was generally seen that in all scales scores increased with increase of age. The weakest relationship between age and pain was seen in coloured VAS scale.In conclusion, Our results show that FPS-R is the most preferred scale for pain intensity among 4 scales and FPS-R has the best correlation with other 3 scales. FPS-R is the most consistent assesment and most prefferred short rating tool in pain intensity rating among Turkish population. However consistency and preference issues of other scales disappear as education level increases. Thus we suggest to consider patients education level when choosing pain intensity rating tools.