J. Bromley et al., The development of a self-report measure to assess the location and intensity of pain in people with intellectual disabilities, J INTEL DIS, 42, 1998, pp. 72-80
The performance of a target group of 20 people with intellectual disability
(ID) and a comparison group of 20 people who did not have ID was investiga
ted on a series of tasks involving the judgement of the location of pain (o
n a bodymap) and the intensity of pain (on an analogue colour scale) in res
ponse to a series of photographs of simulated painful experiences. The resu
lts of the study indicated that: (I) there were no differences between the
target and comparison groups in judging pain location for 93% of test items
; (2) the performance of the target group in judging pain location was stab
le over time: (3) people with ID rated the pain images as more intense than
the comparison group on all the 'mild' pain stimuli and 36% of the 'severe
' pain stimuli; (4) the performance of the target group in judging pain int
ensity was logically consistent for 65% of comparisons (clear trends toward
s significance being apparent for a further 10% of items); (5) the performa
nce of the target group in judging pain intensity was stable over time: and
(6) the performance of the target group was unrelated to indicators of cog
nitive ability.