Development of Pain Assessment Software and Testing of Its Reliability and Validity

Abstract

Pain is a multidimensional phenomenon causing anxiety, depression, catastrophizing, and disability. All these dimensions of pain are interlinked with each other.

Aim and Purpose: A comprehensive approach for assessment of patient pain is needed to make appropriate treatment plan and follow up. In this study, a computer pain assessment software was developed, which comprehensively assesses the patient and also stores and retrieves the patient data for future research. The software was developed by assembling scales of all aspects of pain in integrated software so that it will effectively assess the pain of the patient. Discussion and Conclusion: The intratester and intertester reliability of the software was tested by an intraclass correlation, which was found significant. The criterion validity of software was also high. It was found that the pain assessment software is a valid and reliable tool, which comprehensively assesses the patient pain.