A Comparison Of The Verbal Rating Scale And The Visual Analog Scale For Pain Assessment

This survey was performed to determine if the simple Verbal Rating Scale (VRS) could be substituted for the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) to measure pain intensity in chronic pain patients. Eighty-five (85) chronic pain patients were surveyed using both VAS and VRS. Pearson correlation coefficient(r = 0.906) and p value (< 0.0001) showed excellent correlation between the two, although VRS showed a tendency to be higher than VAS (p=0.068). We propose that the VRS provides a useful alternative to the VAS scores in assessment of chronic pain.