Pain Rating Challenges and Patterns

Our long-term goal is to improve pain communication for patients' health. For this project, we seek information on patients' and health care nurses' (1) mental effort when choosing or understanding, respectively, pain intensity ratings, and (2) confidence in the accuracy of pain intensity rating patterns. This information will clarify the importance of mental effort from pain ratings and the probability of pain intensity rating patterns. Our primary aim will compare patients' and nurses' perceptions of the mental effort of choosing (Aim 2a) and understanding (Aim 2b) pain intensity ratings. We hypothesize that patients will rate mental effort higher than nurses for choosing ratings and lower than nurses for understanding ratings. The results will inform future efforts to improve pain communication between patients and nurses.