ABSTRACT
Chronic pain is a multifaceted experience and any assessment of it must consider the impact of the pain on the sufferer. To consider it as no more than an injury which has run a longer than usual course is to miss the diagnosis of the disease called chronic pain, or ‘the chronic pain syndrome’. Many conditions may present acutely as minor injuries but symptoms do not resolve spontaneously for a variety of reasons. The pain experience can be described as having five dimensions:
• The sensation of pain. • The patient’s suffering and distress: the affective dimension. • The patient’s expectations and beliefs: the cognitive dimension. • The patient’s complaints or non-verbal communication: the behavioural
dimension. • The impact on the patient of the social environment.
