ArticleFrontiers in psychology2021
How and Why Patient Concerns Influence Pain Reporting: A Qualitative Analysis of Personal Accounts and Perceptions of Others' Use of Numerical Pain Scales.
Article in Frontiers in psychology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 31 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
31 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Nurses' Experiences of Pain Management for Patients With Diagnosed Mental Health Conditions: A Systematic Review.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Pooled it
- Providing Feedback on Previous Pain Scores Did Not Affect Weekly Pain Variability: A Cohort-Nested Randomised Study.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Trial
- Reducing children's anxiety and pain in dental environment using an eye massage device combined with natural sounds-a randomized controlled trial.Scientific reports · 2025Trial
- Staying Active: Promoting Activity Engagement for Poststroke Pain Management With Insights From Ecological Momentary Assessment.Archives of physical medicine and rehabilitation · 2026Observational
- The Need for Continued Investment in Digital Pain Assessment.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Article
- Pain expression and decoding as intergroup phenomena.Affective science · 2026Article
- The trigeminal function questionnaire (TriFunQ): a tool for clinical and research use.Chemical senses · 2026Article
- Fascia Iliaca vs. Combined Iliaca Blocks for Proximal Hip Fractures in the Emergency Department.The western journal of emergency medicine · 2026Article
- Exploring Pain and Body Composition in Children with Cancer Compared to Healthy Controls: A Cross-Sectional Case-Control Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Leveraging insights from the psychological science of gender stereotyping to advance scholarship on gender-diverse individuals' pain experiences.The journal of pain · 2025Article
- Mapping and crosswalk of patient-reported pain measures after surgery in the Michigan surgical quality collaborative registry.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Opioid prescription patterns and pain severity among patients with opioid use disorder and other substance use disorders: a mixed methods study.Pain reports · 2025Article
- Early Insights Into the Role of Personality in Adherence to Voice Rest After Phonomicrosurgery.Journal of voice : official journal of the Voice Foundation · 2025Article
- Distinct characteristics of carpal tunnel syndrome among Sjögren's disease patients and their clinical implications.Reumatologia · 2025Article
- Neural basis of intensity-dependent brain activity in response to mechanical stimulation and the level of pain sensitivity.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Article
- Review
- Pain management inequities by demographic and geriatric-related variables in older adult inpatients.Journal of the American Geriatrics Society · 2024Article
- Psychosocial Outcomes of Pain and Pain Management in Adults with Osteogenesis Imperfecta: A Qualitative Study.Journal of clinical psychology in medical settings · 2024Article
- eHealth-Integrated Psychosocial and Physical Interventions for Chronic Pain in Older Adults: Scoping Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Assessing how individuals conceptualize numeric pain ratings: validity and reliability of the Pain Schema Inventory (PSI-6) Short Form.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Complex factors influence how people report and interpret numerical pain ratings. Such variability can introduce noise and systematic bias into clinical pain assessment. Identification of factors that influence self-rated pain and its interpretation by others may bolster utility of these scales. In this qualitative study, 338 participants described motivations for modulating their own pain reports relative to a numerical pain scale (0-10), as well as perceptions of others' pain reporting modulation. Responses indicated that people over-report pain to enhance provider belief/responsiveness or the likelihood of pain relief, and out of fear of future pain or potential illness. Concerns of how one's pain affects and is perceived by others, and financial concerns motivated pain under-reporting. Unprompted, many participants reported never modulating their pain ratings, citing trust in providers and personal ethics. Similar reasons were assumed to motivate others' pain ratings. However, participants often attributed others' over-reporting to internal causes, and their own to external. This bias may underlie common assumptions that patients over-report pain for nefarious reasons, distort interpretation of pain reports, and contribute to pain invalidation. Recognition of patient concerns and one's own personal biases toward others' pain reporting may improve patient-provider trust and support precision of numerical pain ratings.
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