Hello,

These researchers looked into this:

Spiegel, B., Bolus, R., Harris, L. A., Lucak, S., Naliboff, B., Esrailian, E., ... & Talley, J. (2009). Measuring irritable bowel syndrome patients reported outcomes with an abdominal pain numeric rating scale. Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics, 30(11-12), 1159-1170.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26809396

This is the full text:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2036.2009.04144.x/pdf

It might be worth contacting them.

This systematic review endorses this scale:

Mujagic, Z., Keszthelyi, D., Aziz, Q., Reinisch, W., Quetglas, E. G., De Leonardis, F., ... & Masclee, A. A. M. (2015). Systematic review: instruments to assess abdominal pain in irritable bowel syndrome. Alimentary pharmacology & therapeutics, 42(9), 1064-1081.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apt.13378/full

Very best wishes,

Mary

Hi,

Although NRS is fine for rating pain in IBS patients, I would recommend using the most popular instrument for symptom assessment in IBS patients, the IBS-SSS:

Article The irritable bowel severity scoring system: A simple method...

It has 5 items measuring pain intensity, pain frequency, bloating, satisfaction with bowel habit, and impact on daily life. Pain intensity here is measured by a VAS which is more sensitive to change compared with NRS.

Also, if you want to re-test after a treatment, the IBS-SSS can better reflect improvement:

Article Which End Point Is More Comprehensive in Reflecting Changes ...

Ali