A strategy to assess the temporal dimension of pain in children and adolescents.

Two formats to enable children and adolescents to report the changing intensity, duration, and pattern of their pain were developed and tested: (a) a dot matrix with intensity markers on the y-axis and time markers on the x-axis and (b) a list of words or word phrases describing the temporal dimension of pain. Analyses of the dot matrix markings revealed six patterns of pain: steady decrease, steady increase, ongoing sharp increases and decreases, stair-step increase and decrease, steady increase and decrease, and constant. The 12 words and phrases described how pain began as well as how the pattern of pain changed over time.