The effect yielded by the degree of differentiation of two methods for measuring pain on patient statements regarding the extent of clinical pain was analyzed. At the same time, the reference time frame for the patient reports was varied.
The influence exerted by differentiated questioning was determined by comparing two pictorial body diagrams. Three reference time frames were specified (current pain, last week, last half year).
Patients with wide-spread pain reacted stronger to variations in differentiated questioning the older the pain experienced was and the longer the time frame reported on. Upon differentiated questioning, patients with juxta-articular pain however remembered a lower number of pain sites in the past than on global assessment. Patients with backache reported their current pain to be less widely spread when assessed differentially than on global assessment.
Patient reports on the extent of pain mainly differ in those patients with extensive pain depending on the degree of differentiation during questioning. In these cases, the probability is high that the symptomatic complaints first became established, at least in part, as a reaction to the situational questioning conditions and therefore cannot be generalized to other questioning conditions.