Contrasting Perspectives on Pain following Hand Injury

The purposes of this article are 1) to compare contrasting ways of documenting pain, 2) to identify the usefulness of information each method provides, and 3) to examine implications for hand therapy. Participants are tracked for 12 months in an ongoing study of Adaptation to Hand Injury that incorporates quantitative measures of both intensity and functional impact of pain, as well as semistructured qualitative Adaptation Interviews that elicit and document patients' responses to pain and injury experience. Each method of documenting pain tells us something important. Numeric measures of pain intensity (Visual Analog Scale) allow us to document change over time and identify relationships between intensity and self-reported changes in daily life as documented in a structured questionnaire (Disabilities of Arm, Shoulder, and Hand). Qualitative interviews provide an individual perspective on responses to pain and disability and the personal beliefs and experiences that influenced the responses of each unique individual. Findings support the importance of studying more about the clinical behaviors of our patients for better treatment outcomes and recommend the use of qualitative research in helping us to uncover this knowledge.