Original ContributionsReliability and validity of a visual analog scale for acute abdominal pain in the ED*,**
Section snippets
Study design
A prospective observational cohort design was used to assess the validity and reliability of VAS pain measurements. The study was approved by the Institutional Review Boards of the 2 hospitals from whose EDs all acute abdominal pain patients were obtained. All patients gave written informed consent in English or Spanish.
Study setting and population
The study took place in 2 large academic EDs serving an inner-city population. All English and Spanish speaking patients 18 years of age or older who presented to the ED with
Results
A total of 101 patients were enrolled in the study, 61% were women and the mean age was 40 years (range 15 to 88). There were 469 paired measures on the VAS made one minute apart, and 371 measures of change in pain over 30 minute time periods.
Discussion
There have been no previously published studies of the reliability and validity of VAS measures of acute abdominal pain. One previous study of reliability of a VAS for pain in an ED sample with heterogeneous causes of pain found a similar level of reliability, with an ICC of 0.98, and an interval ranging from −16 to +16 mm that included 95% of the differences taken 1 minute apart.15 A study of postoperative pain that looked at reproducibility of VAS pain assessments over a 3-minute interval
Limitations
The findings of this study come from a sample of patients who presented to 2 inner-city EDs in a single county. Although the results may not be generalizable to patients in other settings, the striking similarity of the findings in this study of acute abdominal pain, a study of traumatic pain,8 and two studies enrolling all ED patients with pain,9, 10 suggests that the ability of patients to rate their own pain on a VAS is relatively independent of study population demographics.
The actual
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