Pain Assessment

If you communicate well about your pain, you will get better care from your healthcare providers. It is common to become emotional when talking about pain. The pain assessment worksheet guides you through the questions that your healthcare provider should be asking you.

Pain Assessment Worksheet

Complete this worksheet before going to your appointments, so you have the information prepared in advance. Then you can spend more time talking about what to do about it.

View a sample pain assessment worksheet.

Pain Assessment Tool

There is more to the overall pain experience than what is included in the pain assessment worksheet. It can be very helpful to have a multidimensional assessment that also asks about your mood, sleep, and function. Complete and score this assessment tool before your healthcare provider appointments to make sure that all important aspects of your experience are being addressed.

View a sample pain assessment tool.

Values Worksheet

Next, we will focus our attention on the inner resources that you bring to this experience. This starts with learning more about yourself and what makes you a unique and resilient individual. Complete this worksheet to help discover what matters to you.

The VIA Institute on Character provides another resource to explore and identify your character strengths.

As you move on to setting goals and making action plans, reflect on your values and character strengths. Make use of them to guide your direction and to keep you on course. When you don’t have the physical ability and energy to do everything, you must make deliberate choices so you don’t expend your precious energy on duties and tasks that are unimportant to you.