TIDS: Predicting Chronic Pain
Two people can have identical musculoskeletal injuries; person “A” fully recovers rapidly within the expected soft-tissue healing time (say 6-weeks) and person “B” continues to suffer from pain a year later. Why?
What if we could identify “B” immediately following his/her injury? Perhaps we could treat “B” differently than “A” and prevent him/her from becoming a “chronic patient”.
In my humble opinion I think the newly developed Traumatic Injuries Distress Scale (TIDS), is one of the simplest and clinically applicable questionnaires for predicting chronicity.
TIDS includes only 12 questions and has been shown to be reliable and valid. Higher scores on the TIDS at baseline were associated with greater disability, greater pain intensity, greater anxiety, and greater depression at 12 weeks post-injury.
Here are 5 sample questions from the TIDS.
Do you have…
A feeling of being overwhelmed by pain or other symptoms
Never Occasionally Often/Always
Loss of interest in your appearance
Never Occasionally Often/Always
Anger directed at others
Never Occasionally Often/Always
Flashbacks of the accident while you’re awake that feel very real
Never Occasionally Often/Always
Difficulty maintaining your concentration
Never Occasionally Often/Always
With permission from Dave Walton, PhD at U of Western Ontario I will gladly send you the TIDS by request. Just email me. jam@aptei.com
Reference: Walton DM et al The Traumatic Injuries Distress Scale: A New Tool That Quantifies Distress and Has Predictive Validity With Patient-Reported Outcomes. J Orthop Sports Phys Ther. 2016 Oct;46(10):920-928.
