BACKGROUND: For patients with surgical third molar removal, it is unknown what constitutes a clinically important change in patients’ visual analogue scale (VAS) reports of pain intensity.OBJECTIVES: To determine what constitutes a clinically important change in pain intensity on a VAS following surgical removal of the third molar.METHODS: The study population consisted of patients participating in three randomized trials. Patients were asked to rate their pain three times per day over a period of seven days on a 100 mm VAS after surgical removal of the third molar. Global Perceived Effect was measured on day 1 and day 7 and was used as the external criterion for assessing clinically important pain reduction. Global Perceived Effect scores of 6 (‘much improved’) or higher were classified as clinically ‘successful’, and scores of 5 (‘slightly improved’) or below were classified as clinically ‘unsuccessful’. For each trial, the mean absolute and relative changes in VAS scores were calculated for both ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ treatments. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed.RESULTS: The patients who reported ‘successful’ pain reduction showed a relative pain reduction of ≥69% and an absolute pain reduction >2.5 cm on the VAS, whereas patients who classified their pain reduction as ‘unsuccessful’ had a relative pain reduction of ≥18.5% and an absolute pain reduction <0.5 cm on the VAS. Furthermore, sensitivity and specificity analyses showed that a cut-off point of ≥50% relative pain reduction exhibited the best balance of sensitivity and specificity.CONCLUSION: Relative pain reduction of ≥50% and an absolute pain reduction of ≥2.5 cm on the VAS were most accurate in predicting a successful pain reduction after a given treatment.

中文翻译：

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什么构成第三次磨牙手术后患者的临床上重要的疼痛减轻？

背景：对于进行了第三次磨牙手术的患者，在患者的疼痛强度视觉模拟量表（VAS）报告中，什么构成临床上重要的改变尚不清楚。目的：确定在以下情况下在VAS上疼痛构成临床上重要的改变是什么方法：研究人群包括参加三项随机试验的患者。要求患者在手术切除第三磨牙后的100毫米VAS上，在7天的时间内每天分三次评估疼痛。在第1天和第7天测量了总体感知效果，并将其用作评估临床上重要的疼痛减轻的外部标准。全球感知效果得分为6（“大大改善”）或更高被归类为临床上“成功”，得分为5（“略有改善”）或以下的临床评分为“不成功”。对于每项试验，均计算了“成功”和“不成功”治疗的VAS评分的平均绝对和相对变化。结果：报告“成功”减轻疼痛的患者在VAS上显示相对疼痛减轻≥69％，绝对疼痛减轻> 2.5 cm，而将疼痛减轻归类为“不成功”的患者VAS的相对疼痛减轻≥18.5％，绝对疼痛减轻<0.5 cm。此外，敏感性和特异性分析表明，相对疼痛减轻的临界点≥50％表现出敏感性和特异性的最佳平衡。结论：相对疼痛减轻≥50％和绝对疼痛减轻≥2。