ArticlePain reports2023
The interrater and test-retest reliability of 3 modalities of quantitative sensory testing in healthy adults and people with chronic low back pain or rheumatoid arthritis.
Article in Pain reports, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Reliability of Temporal Summation of Pain in Healthy and Clinical Populations: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2025Pooled it
- Effect of Prebiotic Supplementation With and Without Physiotherapy on Pain and Pain Sensitivity in People with Knee Osteoarthritis.Nutrients · 2026Trial
- Conditioned Pain Modulation and Pleasant Pain Relief as Complementary Processes Reflecting Individual Differences in Pain Coping: A Clustering Approach.European journal of pain (London, England) · 2026Article
- Cellular and molecular basis of neuropathic pain.RMD open · 2026Review
- Intra- and Inter-examiner Reliability of Quantitative Sensory Testing of Knee Joints in Healthy Subjects.Progress in rehabilitation medicine · 2026Article
- Article
- Exploring the interplay between pain processing mechanisms, psychosocial factors, and functional outcomes in patients with chronic low back pain: an exploratory study.Annals of medicine · 2025Article
- Contribution of inflammation markers and quantitative sensory testing (QST) indices of central sensitisation to rheumatoid arthritis pain.Arthritis research & therapy · 2024Article
- Test-retest and interrater reliability of experimental within-subject variability of pain reports as assessed by the focused analgesia selection test.Pain reports · 2024Article
- Mechanical and thermal thresholds before and after application of a conditioning stimulus in healthy Göttingen Minipigs.PloS one · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: Quantitative Sensory Testing (QST) modalities used to assess central pain mechanisms require different protocols in people with different musculoskeletal conditions. Objectives: We aimed to explore the possible effects of musculoskeletal diagnosis and test site on QST interrater and test-retest reliability. Methods: The study included participants with rheumatoid arthritis (RA, n = 18; QST conducted on lower leg) and low back pain (LBP, n = 25; QST conducted on forearm), plus 45 healthy control participants (n = 20 QST on lower leg and n = 25 QST on forearm). Test-retest reliability was assessed from QST conducted 1 to 3 weeks apart. Quantitative sensory testing modalities used were pressure pain detection threshold (PPT) at a site distant to tissue pathology, temporal summation (TS), and conditioned pain modulation (CPM). Temporal summation was calculated as difference or ratio of single and repeated punctate stimuli and unconditioned thresholds for CPM used single or mean of multiple PPTs. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were compared between different subgroups. Results: High to very high reliability was found for all assessments of PPT and TS across anatomical sites (lower leg and forearm) and participants (healthy, RA, and LBP) (ICC ≥ 0.77 for PPT and ICC ≥ 0.76 for TS). Reliability was higher when TS was calculated as a difference rather than a ratio. Conditioned pain modulation showed no to moderate reliability (ICC = 0.01-0.64) that was similar between leg or forearm, and between healthy people and those with RA or LBP. Conclusion: PPT and TS are transferable tools to quantify pain sensitivity at different testing sites in different musculoskeletal diagnoses. Low apparent reliability of CPM protocols might indicate minute-to-minute dynamic pain modulation.
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