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A Clinical Investigation of Reactions to Pain

Cherry Knowle Hospital, Ryhope, Sunderland

ABSTRACT

An investigation has been made into the reliability of clinical estimates of the response to mild cutaneous pain and of the pain reaction point as determined with the pressure algometer. A highly significant correlation was found between two independent observers using these measures to assess the response to pain of 80 male chronic schizophrenic patients. Amongst these patients a significant difference in the scores of certain age groups has been attributed to the effect of tranquillizing drugs,itself a matter of some interest. Paranoid patients were also found to differ from an otherwise comparable group of subjects, the paranoid patients reacting less in the experimental situation, but this could not be attributed to differences in medication. When the patients were grouped according to the degree of their activity on the wards those showing a normal degree of activity scored lower in their responses to pin-prick than either the overactive or the under active groups. It is considered that the high score of the under active groups indicates that ward behaviour in schizophrenics is a poor measure of sensitivity to stimulation. Significant intercorrelations have also been found between the different measures of reactivity suggesting that they are representative of a psychological function which expresses itself consistently both in motor response and in verbal behaviour.