Closs S José, Knapp Peter, Morley Stephen, Stones Catherine
School of Healthcare, University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
Department of Health Sciences, University of York, York, UK.
Br J Pain. 2015 Aug;9(3):173-80. doi: 10.1177/2049463715569805.
Chronic pain is common and difficult for patients to communicate to health professionals. It may include neuropathic elements which require specialised treatment. A little used approach to communicating the quality of pain is through the use of images. This study aimed to test the ability of a set of 12 images depicting different sensory pain qualities to successfully communicate those qualities. Images were presented to 25 student nurses and 38 design students. Students were asked to write down words or phrases describing the quality of pain they felt was being communicated by each image. They were asked to provide as many or as few as occurred to them. The images were extremely heterogeneous in their ability to convey qualities of pain accurately. Only 2 of the 12 images were correctly interpreted by more than 70% of the sample. There was a significant difference between the two student groups, with nurses being significantly better at interpreting the images than the design students. Clearly, attention needs to be given not only to the content of images designed to depict the sensory qualities of pain but also to the differing audiences who may use them. Education, verbal ability, ethnicity and a multiplicity of other factors may influence the understanding and use of such images. Considerable work is needed to develop a set of images which is sufficiently culturally appropriate and effective for general use.
慢性疼痛很常见，患者却难以向医疗专业人员表述清楚。慢性疼痛可能包含需要特殊治疗的神经性因素。一种鲜少使用的描述疼痛性质的方法是通过图像。本研究旨在测试一组描绘不同感觉疼痛性质的12张图像成功传达这些性质的能力。向25名学生护士和38名设计专业学生展示了这些图像。要求学生写下描述他们认为每张图像所传达的疼痛性质的单词或短语，想到多少就写多少。这些图像在准确传达疼痛性质的能力方面差异极大。12张图像中只有2张被超过70%的样本正确解读。两组学生之间存在显著差异，护士在解读图像方面明显比设计专业学生更胜一筹。显然，不仅要关注旨在描绘疼痛感觉性质的图像内容，还要关注可能使用这些图像的不同受众。教育程度、语言能力、种族以及许多其他因素可能会影响对这类图像的理解和使用。需要开展大量工作来开发一套在文化上足够合适且普遍有效的图像。
