As we begin National Pain Awareness Week in Canada, I can’t help but reflect on my forty-plus years of living with daily, chronic pain. Like many people with arthritis, I’ve often struggled to answer a question every health care provider asks: “What is your pain level on a scale of 1 to 10?” One is supposed to mean very little pain and 10 being the most intense pain.
My knees are a 7, my shoulders a 5 — and my hands a 15. I always hope that when I say 15, someone will pause, truly listen, and help me find relief. Beyond the numbers, no one asks how the pain is affecting my life: my sleep, my ability to accomplish basic daily activities of living, my mental health and maybe, just maybe my social life.
In my role as President with the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance, we developed various educational resources through the Canadian Arthritis Patient Alliance — but we weren’t getting to the crux of the challenges which is support from healthcare professionals and physicians to manage the severe, debilitating pain of living with arthritis.
In collaborating with the Chronic Pain Research Network for the past 8 years and advocating for better support for people living with arthritis through CAPA, it was no surprise to me that other people living with chronic pain were unhappy with the arbitrary 1 to 10 scale; it lacks critical details, context and does nothing to facilitate a conversation about next steps.
In 2024, I joined an international group of people living with pain to develop a better assessment tool. This tool would give a clearer picture of the pain experience for both people living with chronic pain and their health care providers. A search told us that no such tool existed and the ones that did were all a variation of the numbered scale and not co-created with people living with chronic pain. None of these pain assessment tools are being widely used and available.
So, the work on My Pain Assessment and Communication Tool (MPaCT) began. After months of dialogue, we held focus groups to get feedback and input to refine the tool and in April 2025 we had a final draft to share.
Pain is more than a number — and so are we. The MPaCT tool is a new way to make sure our voices are heard and to have better discussions with your healthcare providers about chronic pain — check it out on the CAPA website at arthritispatient.ca
This work was generously supported by The Chronic Pain Research Network, all the people with lived experience volunteered their time.
