Assessment of pain among a group of Nigerian dental patients

BACKGROUND: Pain is considered a key symptom associated with possible impairment of oral-health-related quality of life and its assessment is important for the planning and evaluation of preventive and treatment effort. The tools for assessing pain must therefore be valid and consistent. The objective of this study was to assess dental patients’ level of pain based on the clinical diagnosis of their dental condition and the correlation between two pain assessment scales, Visual analogue scale (VAS) and the Full Cup Test (FCT), for the assessment of pain among dental patients. METHODS: A total of 185 patients presenting at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital dental outpatient clinics with various forms of orofacial pain were included in this study. The mean VAS scores and mean FCT scores for the different dental conditions were compared. Agreement between VAS and FCT was evaluated using the Intra-class correlation (ICC) coefficients and Cronbach alpha coefficient was also calculated to assess consistency of the two pain scales. RESULTS: Majority i.e. 95.1, 96.2 and 100% who presented with acute pulpitis, acute apical periodontitis and pericoronitis respectively, presented with moderate to severe pain levels (p < 0.05). Only 25.9 and 4% who presented with chronic marginal gingivitis and chronic pulpitis respectively presented with no pain (p < 0.05). A large proportion (75%) of patients with no pain had single diagnosis while more than half (52.1%) of those who presented with severe pain had multiple diagnoses (p = 0.025). The mean VAS and FCT scores for acute pain were 6.1 ± 2.1 and 5.9 ± 2.4 respectively and for chronic pain 3.9 ± 2.7 and 3.7 ± 2.7 respectively (P = 0.001). The interclass correlation coefficient revealed that the mean VAS and FCT scores were statistically correlated and reliable with a Cronbach alpha coefficient of 0.85. CONCLUSION: It can be concluded that patients who presented with either acute or chronic dental conditions may experience moderate to severe level of pain, with patients with multiple diagnoses experiencing more severe pain, and there is a correlation between the VAS and FCT for pain assessment among dental patients.