The development of a self-report measure to assess the location and intensity of pain in people with intellectual disabilities |
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Authors: | J. Bromley,E. Emerson,& A. Caine |
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Affiliation: | Department of Clinical Psychology, Withington Hospital, Manchester, England,;Hester Adrian Research Centre, University of Manchester, Manchester, England,;Rochdale Healthcare NHS Trust, Birch Hill Hospital, Rochdale, England |
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Abstract: | The performance of a target group of 20 people with intellectual disability (ID) and a comparison group of 20 people who did not have ID was investigated on a series of tasks involving the judgement of the location of pain (on a bodymap) and the intensity of pain (on an analogue colour scale) in response to a series of photographs of simulated painful experiences. The results of the study indicated that: (1) there were no differences between the target and comparison groups in judging pain location for 93% of test items; (2) the performance of the target group in judging pain location was stable over time; (3) people with ID rated the pain images as more intense than the comparison group on all the 'mild' pain stimuli and 36% of the 'severe' pain stimuli; (4) the performance of the target group in judging pain intensity was logically consistent for 65% of comparisons (clear trends towards significance being apparent for a further 10% of items); (5) the performance of the target group in judging pain intensity was stable over time; and (6) the performance of the target group was unrelated to indicators of cognitive ability. |
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Keywords: | self-report measure pain location pain intensity mental retardation |
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