Numeric Pain Rating Scale

What is a Numeric Pain Rating Scale?

Pain rating scales are tools that doctors, physical therapists, nurses, and adjacent healthcare practitioners use to help assess and understand the level of pain that a person is experiencing, whether that's acute pain or chronic pain. Besides assessing and understanding the pain level, pain scales also help healthcare practitioners make well-informed and accurate diagnoses and formulate carefully considered treatment plans for acute and chronic pain patients.

These tools come in different forms, but the version we're discussing for this short guide is the Numeric Pain Rating Scale (NPRS), also known as the numeric rating scale (NRS). It is a commonly used tool for assessing pain intensity and understanding pain management and treatment outcomes in chronic pain clinical trials.  It allows patients to rate their pain on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 representing no pain and 10 representing the worst pain imaginable.

The NPRS's straightforward approach helps consistently measure pain intensity across different clinical settings and conditions, like chronic low back pain. Furthermore, not only is the NPRS preferred for its simplicity and ease of completion, but chronic pain intensity measured by the NPRS is responsive and effective in quantifying changes in pain severity (Amanda et al., 2000).

How to use the Numeric Pain Rating Scale

To ensure that you conduct a quick and easy pain intensity assessment using the Numeric Pain Rating Scale or numeric pain intensity scale, follow the steps provided below:

Step 1: Download the template

Obtain a copy of our Numeric Pain Rating Scale template by clicking the "Use Template" or "Download Template PDF" button in the guide so you always have one on hand.

Step 2: Ask the patient about their pain and where they are feeling the pain

During your appointment with your patient, ask them about the general or specific areas of their body that feel painful, so you have a baseline idea of what the problem might be.

Step 3: Issue the rating scale to your patients and have them rate themselves

Introduce the numeric scale for pain to your patient and have them look at the scale's score ranges and designations. Ask them to rate their current level of pain intensity on the scale. If they are unable to answer the scale by themselves (physically), it's okay for them to have someone assist them. Don't forget to record their answers on the template.

Step 4: Get the average score and proceed to the next steps

Once you receive the fully-accomplished Numeric Pain Rating Scale, get the average score based on the ratings based on the number of times you assessed them; typically, these will be around three within the span of 24 hours.

With this piece of information, you can conduct a final pain assessment by comparing your obtained average to their present pain intensity. Afterward, proceed to the next steps regarding their pain management or treatment plan.

Benefits of using the Numeric Pain Rating Scale template

Not only is the Numeric Rating Scale used by many healthcare professionals, regardless of their specialty, but the scale and its template offer many benefits to those who will use it. Some of these benefits are the following:

It's easy to use

Just to reiterate, the numeric rating scale for pain is quite easy to use since the patient simply needs to rate themselves from zero to ten. The practitioner simply needs to note the level of pain the client is feeling now and calculate the average pain level they felt last week.

Practitioners can come up with treatment plans immediately

Given that it's easy to use and that you simply need to average the scores based on the ratings, you can immediately start working on treatment plans for the client. The process of assessing and treating becomes quick and effective when you use this scale.

You can use it anywhere

Given that it's easy to access and implement, you can use this scale during face-to-face appointments or even online if the patient can't make it to face-to-face appointments.

You can use it to monitor your patient and your treatment plan

To see if your patient is getting better, you may reissue this pain scale every now and then, ideally once a week or every two weeks, given that they have to look back on how they felt the week before answering the scale.

It's also a good way to check if your treatment plan is working. If it doesn't seem to work based on the scale results, you can modify it to see if it improves.

Reference

de Williams, A. C., Davies, H. T. O., & Chadury, Y. (2000). Simple pain rating scales hide complex idiosyncratic meanings. Pain, 85(3), 457–463. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-3959(99)00299-7