Cut-off points for mild, moderate, and severe pain on the visual analogue scale for pain in patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain

The aim of this study was to find the cut-off points on the visual analogue scale (VAS) to distinguish among mild, moderate, and severe pain, in relation to the following: pain-related interference with functioning; verbal description of the VAS scores; and latent class analysis for patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain. A total of 456 patients were included. Pain was assessed using the VAS and verbal rating scale; functioning was assessed using the domains of the Short Form (36) Health Survey (SF-36). Eight cut-off point schemes were tested using multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA), ordinal logistic regression, and latent class analysis. The study results showed that VAS scores ⩽ 3.4 corresponded…