Hi all
How the Margolis pain drawing system (which each participant asked to shade according to whether they were currently experiencing pain) scored? and how one calculate the mean and standard deviations for the whole sample?
Many thanks for any help
Hi,
In analyzing pain drawings, there are in my experience no standard proccedures really. So you could probably analyze the sections separately. Or you could additionally create summary variables such as the number of affected areas or the spread of pain or compute percentage body surface and so on. Theoretically you could also use more fancy techniques, for example drawing heat maps to show the distribution in the sample, as done in the following study:
Fernández-de-las-Peñas, C., Madeleine, P., Martínez-Perez, A., Arendt-Nielsen, L., Rodrigo Jiménez-García, & Pareja, J. A. (2010). Pressure pain sensitivity topographical maps reveal bilateral hyperalgesia of the hands in patients with unilateral carpal tunnel syndrome. Arthritis Care & Research, 62(8), 1055–1064. http://doi.org/10.1002/acr.20189
we have developed a software, which can average and overlay pain drawings, which then present as contour lines of different intensity of color (I attached a paper showing). If you are only interested in mean and SD I suggest a "primitive" solution: Copy the drawing on standard paper, cut out the marked area and weigh the paper on a fine balance, and then compare to a standard area (e.g. the complete body representation of your scheme). The ration gives you the precentage of full body area). Than calculate your numbers as usual. By the way, our software does something very similar, it scans at 600 dpi resolution and identifies the marked area in numbers of pixels. Xaver's [Hi, and kind regards across the river ;-))] comment points to a similar technique. A paper attached to demonstrate
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