Abstract

• The main purpose of this study is to systematically classify words indicating pain in terms of their ranks in each subclass. This study is a part of developing a Korean Pain Measurement Tool. This study did not include exploration of each word's dimension such as sensory or affective. Eighty three Korean words tentatively classified in 19 subclasses in previous study were used for this study. At least three to six words were included in each subclass and the words were randomly placed in which each subject indicates their rank of pain degree. One hundred and fifty nursing students and one hundred clinical nurses were requested to indicate the rank of each word. One hundred and sixteen students and eighty three nurses completed the ratings for analysis. The data were collected from June 1983 to July 1983. The data using ordinal scale were analyzed by Friedman ANOVA to test significant difference between rank means. All of pain words indicated significant rank mean difference in all of 19 subclasses. Some of the words were either cancelled or replaced by other words, or rearranged for their ranks. Subclasses of which words were cancelled were 1) Simple stimulating pain, 2) Punctuate pressure, 3) peripheral nerve pain, 4) radiation pain, 5) punishment-related pain, and 6) suffering-related pain. Subclasses of which words were replaced or rearranged were 1) incisive pressure, 2) constrictive pressure, 3) dull pain, 4) tract pain, 5) digestion-related pain and 6) fear-related pain. Four subclasses such as traction pressure, thermal, cavity pressure, and fatigue-related pain indicated significant differences among rank means in each subclasses and showed no visible overlaps of the ranks among means. Further research is needed using high level measurement of pain degree of each word and more sophisticated analysis of the pain degrees. Three pain words which would be related to chemical stimulation were newly explored and included as a new subclass. Through this study, the total number of subclasses increases from 19 to 20 and the total number of Korean words in the scale decreases from 83 to 80.

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