CUSTOMIZED PAIN ASSESSMENT

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from Applicant's Abstract): The prevalence of untreated moderate to severe pain may be as high as 25 percent in the United States. Pain is the primary symptom that prompts individuals to seek medical attention, but it is extremely difficult to measure. Psychological Applications will develop a menu-driven software program that will allow health professionals to tailor an assessment of pain to their specific needs. The program options will represent a compilation of the major methods currently available for pain assessment. The software will include assessment over varying time frames, including discrete and continuous ratings, dual scaling of intensity and negative affect, and the inclusion of visual analogue and category scales. The approach is called Customized Pain Assessment (CPA). One advantage of such a computer program is the immediate scoring of response data, which can be tedious to score, and the potential to immediately summarize the results in graphical form or other customized reports. Another advantage is the ability to satisfy a wide variety of clinical and research needs within a single application. The final product will be user-friendly, and available for the commonly used computer platforms (Windows 95/98, Macintosh). The combination of these characteristics, together with an affordable price, ensures the program's commercial viability. PROPOSED COMMERCIAL APPLICATION: There are outstanding commercial prospects for a computer-administered method to provide practitioners and researchers with alternative techniques for measuring the intensity and emotional components of pain. Once the Customized Pain Assessment (CPA) package is implemented and tested, site licenses for acquiring the program will be sold to clinics and research organizations involved in pain assessment.