- Title
- Validation of an electronic visual analog scale mHealth tool for acute pain assessment: prospective cross-sectional study
- Creator
- Escalona-Marfil, Carles; Coda, Andrea; Ruiz-Moreno, Jorge; Miquel Riu-Gispert, Lluís; Girones, Xavier
- Relation
- Journal of Medical Internet Research Vol. 22, Issue 2, no. e13468
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/13468
- Publisher
- JMIR Publications
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2020
- Description
- Background: Accurate measurement of pain is required to improve its management and in research. The visual analog scale (VAS) on paper format has been shown to be an accurate, valid, reliable, and reproducible way to measure pain intensity. However, some limitations should be considered, some of which can be implemented with the introduction of an electronic VAS version, suitable to be used both in a tablet and a smartphone. Objective: This study aimed to validate a new method of recording pain level by comparing the traditional paper VAS with the pain level module on the newly designed Interactive Clinics app. Methods: A prospective observational cross-sectional study was designed. The sample consisted of 102 participants aged 18 to 65 years. A Force Dial FDK 20 algometer (Wagner Instruments) was employed to induce mild pressure symptoms on the participants’ thumbs. Pain was measured using a paper VAS (10 cm line) and the app. Results: Intermethod reliability estimated by ICC(3,1) was 0.86 with a 95% confidence interval of 0.81 to 0.90, indicating good reliability. Intramethod reliability estimated by ICCa(3,1) was 0.86 with a 95% confidence interval of 0.81 to 0.90, also indicating good reliability. Bland-Altman analysis showed a difference of 0.175 (0.49), and limits of agreement ranged from –0.79 to 1.14. Conclusions: The pain level module on the app is highly reliable and interchangeable with the paper VAS version. This tool could potentially help clinicians and researchers precisely assess pain in a simple, economic way with the use of a ubiquitous technology.
- Subject
- pain; visual analog pain scale; pain measurement; mobile phone; mHealth; validation; tablet
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1414956
- Identifier
- uon:36838
- Identifier
- ISSN:1438-8871
- Rights
- © Carles Escalona-Marfil, Andrea Coda, Jorge Ruiz-Moreno, Lluís Miquel Riu-Gispert, Xavier Gironès. Originally published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (http://www.jmir.org), 12.02.2020. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://www.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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