Numerical and Combined Rating Scales

When using the visual analogue scale, you can ask the patient to:

“Please mark your pain on the horizontal line according to how bad it is, ranging from no pain to pain as bad as it could possibly be.”

or

“Please mark your pain relief on the horizontal line ranging from complete pain relief to no pain relief.”

Visual analogue pain and pain relief scales (below) are 100mm lines with verbal anchors at each end:

Fig. 9 Visual analogue pain scales (top) and Visual analogue pain relief scales (bottom)