[Documentation of chronic pain-a seroey.].

This article reviews the methods currently in use for the measurement of chronic pain. The most important items for inclusion in questionnaires about the history and in pain diaries to elicit data on the time-course of pain are presented, and both the aims and the advantages and disadvantages of various strategies are discussed. The documentation of chronic pain in outpatients would allow answers to some questions concerned with medical epidemiology if practiced in a large number of therapeutic institutions, especially if the data were processed and evaluated by microcomputer.