Pain Scales
...used to monitor pain and to foster communication between patients and their health care providers...
The most common reason people seek health care is that they are in pain.
By using the 0-10 point scale, people have a means to communicate their pain intensity and clinicians have a means to track it.
Life’s End Institute: Missoula Demonstration Project’s Pain as the Fifth Vital Sign task force reviewed existing pain scales and developed the two versions (listed below).
The 0-10 numeric pain rating scale includes verbal descriptions of pain intensity and physical functioning. The Wong-Baker "faces" scale is used primarily with children.
- The blue "bookmark" pain scale is for use by health care professionals;
- the yellow "checklist" version is for lay people.