The reported rate did not appear to be related to study quality .
Pain prevalence in the combined sample s did not appreciably differ between males and females , those with complete versus incomplete SCI , and those with paraplegia versus tetraplegia .
We conclude that too much heterogeneity was present in the reports to calculate a post-SCI pain prevalence rate using meta-analytic methods .
Published studies have reported widely divergent estimates of the prevalence of chronic pain among individuals with ( traumatic ) spinal cord injury ( SCI ) .
Postsurgical pain outcome assessment
& NA ; Reliable and valid measures of pain are essential for conducting clinical trials of pain treatments . Perhaps the most important aspect of a pain measure 's validity is its sensitivity , or ability to detect changes in pain over time and due to treatment . Several factors may affect a measure 's sensitivity , including the complexity of the rating task for the measure , the number of pain intensity levels assessed by the measure , the dimension of pain assessed ( e.g. pain intensity vs. pain relief ) , and the number of individual ratings ( e.g. single rating vs. composite score ) used to create the measure . The purpose of this study was to compare the relative sensitivity of three measures of outcome and a composite made up of all three measures for detecting analgesic effects in two sample s of persons participating in a r and omized controlled trial . One hundred and twenty‐three patients who had undergone knee surgery and 124 women who had undergone a laparotomy were given one of three medications in the day after their surgery : morphine , ketorolac , or placebo . Two measures of pain intensity ( a visual analog scale ( VAS ) and a 4‐point verbal rating scale ( VRS ) ) were administered at baseline , and these measures plus a 5‐point VRS of pain relief were administered at 16 additional time points up to 24 h following surgery . As predicted , we found variability in the sensitivity of the outcome measures used in these studies , with the 4‐point VRS showing less sensitivity than the VAS or relief ratings . However , contrary to our prediction , a composite measure of outcome made up of all three measures was not consistently superior to the individual measures for detecting treatment effects . Finally , we found that pain relief ratings were related to , but also distinct from , change in pain intensity as measured by changes in pain intensity ratings from baseline to each postmedication assessment point . These findings have important implication s for the assessment of pain in clinical trials
The reported rate did not appear to be related to study quality .
Pain prevalence in the combined sample s did not appreciably differ between males and females , those with complete versus incomplete SCI , and those with paraplegia versus tetraplegia .
We conclude that too much heterogeneity was present in the reports to calculate a post-SCI pain prevalence rate using meta-analytic methods .
Published studies have reported widely divergent estimates of the prevalence of chronic pain among individuals with ( traumatic ) spinal cord injury ( SCI ) .