1 Before you use it
What it is
Seven items producing a grade rather than a score — combining pain intensity and disability into Grades 0 through IV: no pain, low intensity/low disability, high intensity/low disability, high disability but moderately limiting, and high disability severely limiting.
When to reach for it
Persistent pain, and in temporomandibular presentations where it is commonly used as part of the standard assessment set.
Patterns it serves · 2
2 Giving it
Scoring
Characteristic pain intensity and disability scores combined into a grade. Report the grade and the two component scores.
What it doesn’t measure
Fear, catastrophising, or specific function.
3 Reading the score
Interpreting it
The grades are the output. No verified thresholds beyond the published grading are carried in our library and none are printed here.
Grade III and IV are defined by disability, not intensity — which is the useful teaching point: pain severity and disability separate, and it's the disability that predicts the trajectory.
Is the change real?
Student trap. Reading a grade as a severity score. Grades III and IV are about disability, and a Grade II patient can be in more pain than a Grade IV one.
Official source: pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov. We don't host the form.
This is a learning tool. It does not diagnose patients and does not replace your clinical educator.
Did this page do its job?
CliniStudy is in beta. One tap is enough — it decides what gets fixed first.