Portraits of Pain
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Portraits of Pain: Exploring whether pain drawings can meaningfully communicate pain experiences.
IRAS ID
210523
Contact name
Irene Massaiu
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Staffordshire University
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 0 months, 18 days
Research summary
Pain is usually measured by asking a patient to tell the health professional where on a scale of 1-10 they think their pain is. However, pain is difficult to measure and to talk about. This is because it has many aspects to it (how intense it is, how long it has been there, how it impacts on us) and because of this a scale of 1 – 10 cannot capture the pain experience. For example, a score of seven may not be to do with the intensity of the pain, but may reflect how the pain is impacting on the person’s life. This means that our ability to explain pain is difficult.
However, some researchers have begun to explore whether drawing pain can help to explain what it is like to live with pain. The pain drawing then becomes a tool that can open up conversation about a person’s pain experience. A research team at Sao Paulo Catholic University have been using pain portraits (drawings of pain) combined with interviews to see if it helps people who live with chronic pain (pain that they have had for more than three months) communication about, and better understand their pain.
The Brazilian health system is different to the UK, so we have already tested out the process with a group of chronic pain patients (through what is called a service evaluation) and have found that adding in the pain portrait and interview is possible in the UK context. What we want to do now is to test whether the pain portraits can help people living with chronic pain better communicate their pain experience.
REC name
East of England - Cambridge East Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
16/EE/0439
Date of REC Opinion
7 Oct 2016
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion