Can we use digital pain drawings captured by people living with MSK conditions in clinics?

New research has found that digital pain drawings could be clinically useful, due to their potential to guide diagnosis, treatment and management choices in managing musculoskeletal chronic pain.

What are digital pain drawings?

Digital Pain Drawings are an important tool to evaluate, communicate and objectify pain. They are a self-report measure of the spatiotemporal aspects of pain and are considered a gold-standard for pain assessment. They are often used in research to assess participant’s pain.

Using digital pain drawings in clinic?

In previous research, healthcare professionals have found potential benefits to using digital pain drawings by improving patient-provider communication and aiding clinical decision making. However, it is still unclear which aspects of digital pain drawings, either alone or in combination with other outcome measures, have a clinical utility.

The aim of this recent study was to explore perspectives of healthcare professionals from different disciplines involved in pain management on the potential clinical use of digital pain drawings.

What did the researchers find out?

Researchers conducted interviews with healthcare professionals providing pain management services to people living with musculoskeletal pain conditions working across different disciplines and care levels within the healthcare system in the UK. They then did some analysis and found four running themes within all interviews.

The study found that current pain assessment methods were inconsistently applied across disciplines, relying mostly on verbal 0–10 pain scales or paper questionnaires, which were often incomplete or unprocessed. Digital pain drawings were not used but were seen as potentially valuable.

Perceived advantages of digital pain drawings included:

• Improved communication: Especially helpful in overcoming issues related to recall, limited consultation time, and language barriers (particularly for non-native English speakers), since visuals are universally easier to interpret.
• Real-time, pre-appointment data collection: Allowing clinicians to receive detailed pain information ahead of time.

Clinical uses of digital pain drawings (alone or combined with other measures):

• Supporting referrals (e.g., rheumatology, physiotherapy, pain services)
• Aiding in differential diagnosis
• Monitoring treatment effectiveness
• Enabling shared treatment planning
• Tailoring follow-up schedules

Additional insights:

• Participants highlighted the value of correlating pain characteristics (e.g. intensity, location) with other outcomes like quality of life or function.
• They recommended including broader pain-related factors (e.g. triggers, relief factors) and outcomes (e.g. sleep, mood, productivity) to enhance the utility of digital pain drawings.
• Variations in pain data and correlations with other measures were seen as crucial for developing personalised treatment plans.

A summary of the study's findings

Overall, this study has identified several ways in which digital pain drawings, collected directly from people living with musculoskeletal pain conditions, could support clinical decision making of healthcare professionals belonging to different disciplines involved in pain management.