Evaluation of Pain Through a Novel Mobile Application: The Visual, Auditory, and Tactile Scale (VATAS)

TL;DR

The paper introduces VATAS, a new mobile pain assessment tool that uses visual, auditory, and tactile senses to provide a more accurate and accessible way to measure pain.

Contribution

The novel contribution is the development of a multi-sensory pain assessment tool designed to overcome the limitations of traditional single-dimensional scales.

Findings

VATAS addresses the shortcomings of traditional pain scales by incorporating multiple sensory modalities.

The tool is designed to be more standardized, repeatable, and suitable for visually impaired patients.

VATAS has potential for home use and continuous pain monitoring through data tracking.

Abstract

Developing a validated, standardized, and easily accessible pain assessment tool is the first step toward improving pain management. Since pain measurement is often used as a primary or secondary endpoint in daily clinical practice and clinical trials, accurate and precise pain measurement is of great importance. Therefore, there is a need for a valid, reliable, safe, and low-cost method to measure and assess pain levels more objectively. Traditional measurement tools, still considered the gold standard in clinical pain research, have significant disadvantages, including low sensitivity and higher rates of false responses. Perhaps most importantly, the assumption that general pain is a one-dimensional experience that can be measured with a single-item scale is limiting. Recently, new technologies utilizing smart devices have emerged to improve existing traditional pain outcome measures. The Visual, Auditory, and Tactile Analog Scale (VATAS) was designed to address tactile, auditory, and visual senses. By including multiple senses, it is thought that errors arising from the objectification of pain solely through a single-dimensional scale, such as Visual Analog Scale (VAS), could be eliminated, providing a more standardized and repeatable pain assessment. VATAS has the potential to complement the deficiencies of standard pain measurement methods by appealing to multiple senses. It can provide a more standardized, patient-compliant, and repeatable pain assessment. Furthermore, it can be used for evaluating and recording pain in visually impaired patients and has the potential for data tracking, allowing patients' pain to be monitored even when they are at home.

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