A computerized survey of pain in Parkinson's disease patients: A pilot feasibility study☆

Received 1 April 2009; received in revised form 1 June 2009; accepted 2 July 2009.

Abstract

Approximately two thirds of Parkinson's disease (PD) patients exhibit bothersome pain symptoms that oftentimes go unrecognized. In this study, 14 patients with PD volunteered to complete a computerized version of the McGill Pain Questionnaire using the PAINReportIt® interactive software to assess the feasibility of acquiring real-time pain data in a clinical setting. 100% of the subjects completed >90% of questions in an average of 19.9 min; however, some subjects (n = 4, 28.6%) required physical assistance. 92.9% (n = 13) of subjects supported use of PAINReportIt® across all measures. PAINReportIt® was feasible as a data-collection modality among our PD cohort, and with modifications may be used as both an investigative instrument and clinical tool for the evaluation of PD-related pain syndromes.

Keywords: Parkinson's disease, Pain, Computerized survey, McGill pain questionnaire

a Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Department of Neurology, Chicago, IL, USA

b Center for Management of Complex Chronic Care, Hines VA Hospital, Chicago, IL, USA

c eNURSING llc, 1761 Pavilion Way, Unit 508, Park Ridge, IL 60068, USA

Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 801 414 0627.

☆ The review of this paper was entirely handled by the Co-Editor-in-Chief, Ronald PFeiffer.

PII: S1353-8020(09)00168-0

doi:10.1016/j.parkreldis.2009.07.001

16 of 22