Abstract PO-110: Determining the validity of patient pain markings for wound pain prior to debridement
Authors: Noel Jessi , Garg Rishabh , Yao Yingwei , Weaver Michael , Lyon Debra , Stechmiller Joyce , Wilkie Diana J. 
Published: December 2020

Introduction: Little research has been done to determine if the wound pain markings correlate with the changes in measured wound size. For cancer patients, wound pain could be caused by the tumor or cancer treatments. The study purpose was to evaluate the validity of patient pain markings (body surface area) as an indicator of wound size and changes in size over time. This study will contribute to the clinicians’ understanding of the patient reported pain outcomes as an indicator of wound healing. Methodology: Among a sample of 40 participants, 22 (55%) were female, 38 (95%) were non-Hispanic, and 35 (88%) were White and 5 (12%) were Black. Mean age of participants was 70.8 (SD=9.1) years, 13 participants completed high school, 16 completed some college, and 11 completed more than college. The majority of the participants (n=23, 58%) were married. All subjects were asked to complete the PAINReportIt, an electronic adaptation of the McGill Pain Questionnaire. Their wound areas were measured using the Silhouette device, which measured the wound length, depth, and volume. Using the subject’s PAINReportIt pain markings on a body outline, the ImageJ software algorithm calculated the body surface area (BSA) in pixels as marked for each pain site. Analyses included descriptive statistics and Kendall correlations. Results: From the 40 unique patients, there were 157 visits where both BSA and wound size data were recorded: 18 patients had 5 visits, 4 had 8 visits, 7 had 3 visits, and 7 had data from 2 visits. As a context to the magnitude of pain the patients reported at visit 1, the mean pain intensity was 2.9±2.7 (0-10 scale). The wounds were in the lower extremity for 39 patients and in the foot for 1 patient. The mean wound area was 2634±8005 mm2. 35 patients reported pain in 1 site, 1 reported 2 sites, 1 reported 3 sites, 2 patients reported pain in 4 sites, and 1 patient did not report pain sites at visit 1 but did so at other visits. The between- subject correlation between the wound size and the BSA area marked was tau=.33 (p&lt;.01). The within-subject correlation between these two measurements was tau=.08 (p=.45). Conclusions: The findings show that the within-subject correlation between repeated BSA and wound area measurements was low, indicating that the BSA is not a good indicator of change in wound area over time. In the future, studies of a larger sample size are needed to confirm the degree of correlation between BSA and wound area.

Citation Format: Jessi Noel, Rishabh Garg, Yingwei Yao, Michael Weaver, Debra Lyon, Joyce Stechmiller, Diana J. Wilkie. Determining the validity of patient pain markings for wound pain prior to debridement [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the AACR Virtual Conference: Thirteenth AACR Conference on the Science of Cancer Health Disparities in Racial/Ethnic Minorities and the Medically Underserved; 2020 Oct 2-4. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 2020;29(12 Suppl):Abstract nr PO-110.