Faces Pain Scale – Revised

The Faces Pain Scale – Revised (FPS-R) is a self-report measure of pain intensity. This scale was developed for children and has been. It was adapted from the Faces Pain Scale.

It can also be used in adult people who are unable to use numerical rating scale like visual analog scale. It is particularly recommended for use in younger children as numerical self-rating scales (0-10) can be used with most children over 8 years of age.

Interstingly, Faces pain scale- revised shows a close linear relationship with visual analog pain scales across the age range of 4-16 years.

Scale

Scale consists of six faces as shown below which vary in gestures.  The left-most face shows no pain.  The faces show more and more pain  from left to right up and right most face shows extreme pain.

Following instructions are given to child –

These faces show how much something can hurt. This face [the assessor point to left-most face] shows no pain. The faces show more and more pain [point to each from left to right] up to this one [point to right-most face] – it shows very much pain. Point to the face that shows how much you hurt [right now] .

Beginning from left each face is given a score  0, 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10.

Thus score  ‘0’ = ‘no pain’ and score  ’10’ = ‘very much pain.’

This scale is intended to measure how children feel inside, not how their face looks.

Faces Pain Scale

it is the original scale from which Faces Pain Scale – Revised is derived. The revision was done so that scale could be accommodated on 0-10 metric.

Original Faces Pain scale consisted of seven faces instead of six and scores were 0,1,2,3,4,5,6.

Here is an image of original Faces Pain Scale.

Score ‘0’ signified no pain and score ‘6’ signified maximum pain.