Measuring the variation between self-reported osteoarthritis pain assessments
Leyland K., Gates LS., Nevitt M., Felson DT., Ambrose K., Bierma-Zeinstra SM., Conaghan PG., Engebretsen L., Hochberg M., Hunter DJ., Jones G., Jordan JM., Judge AD., Lohmander S., Roos EM., Sanchez-Santos MT., Sheard S., Yoshimura N., van Meurs JJ., Batt ME., Newton JL., Cooper C., Arden N.
Self-reported pain questions are the established way to determine osteoarthritis (OA) related pain in population cohort studies, of which NHANES-type (National Health Nutrition Examination Survey) questions and WOMAC (Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Arthritis Index) are the most common. However, there is limited understanding of how wording variations relating to the duration of pain (i.e. most days in the month) and period of pain recall (i.e. in the last year) affect the prevalence and comparability of these questions. The aim of this research was to assess four common NHANES pain questions and to establish an equivalent threshold within the WOMAC pain subscale.