comparing two scales: fps-r and nrs for pain measurement in elderly bedridden population of hamadan-iran

Background: pain is a common complaint of the elderly and it is important to evaluate pain intensity carefully in aged people. there are different self-report scales for pain evaluation in elderly individuals, however, only a few studies have compared these scales. this study was conducted to compare 2 regular pain scales: fps-r and nrs in the elderly population. methods: in this cross sectional study, we evaluated 2 different pain assessment tools. a total of 120 bedridden patients, who were older than 65 years, and were admitted in governmental hospitals in hamadan-iran were studied during 3 months (may-july 2016). for evaluating pain, we used the fps-r (faces pain scale-revised) and nrs (numerical rating scale). all participants’ information were gathered in a checklist and analyzed using the spss 16 software. results: all patients had some degree of pain that started from 1 month to over 6 months ago, among them, 115 (96%) had persistent pain. the mean pain intensity in the participants was similar with both scales. there was a strong correlation between the 2 scales when using the pearson correlation method (r = 0.735, p < 0.001). the age group analysis showed a significant difference in different age subgroups, therefore, the 75 - 85 year old age group had the highest and > 85 years old had the lowest pain intensity (7.07 vs. 5.36, respectively using nrs, pv = 0.014) conclusions: pain has a remarkable prevalence in bedridden patients in hamadan. both scales: the fps-r and nrs scales had a strong correlation for measuring pain intensity in the elderly patient population, however, simplicity of the fps-r scale for use with the older adults, makes it an appropriate pain scale in clinical practice. future studies need to evaluate a suitable management pain for older adults.