Key words: assignment, validation, diagnosis.The meaning of pain has preoccupied humans through the centuries and is of special significance to those who treat the sick; medical practitioners use it as an aid to diagnosis.' Pain is nevertheless still frequently considered in regard to a single attribute -variation in intensity. This concentration on one quality is reflected in the many measures of pain that have been developed. These may scale the experience numerically or record it graphically,2 but it is only intensity that is acknowledged rather than the qualitative dimensions.Pain
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