[Quality assurance in therapy of chronic pain. Results obtained by a taskforce of the German Section of the Association for the Study of Pain on psychological assessment of chronic pain. VIII. Instruments for the assessment of pain-associated dimensions: depression, somatic symptoms, anxiety.].

Chronic pain is often associated with an array of general psychological dimensions such as depression, somatic symptoms, anxiety, anger and a loss of quality of life. Part VIII describes various instruments concerning each dimension and comments on their applicability within a diagnostic routine for chronic pain patients. TheAllgemeine Depressionsskala (German version of CES-D) is recommended for the assessment of depression, and theBeschwerden-Liste seems best for assessing somatic symptoms. Trait-anxiety and pain-unrelated state-anxiety seem not to be suitable because they lack significance for the therapy process. While the inventory for assessing anger still needs an empirical basis for chronic pain patients, quality of life inventories are not recommended for routine pain assessment.