Development of a mobile digital manikin to measure pain location and intensity

Painful conditions are prevalent and substantially contribute to disability worldwide. Digital manikins are body-shaped drawings to facilitate self-reporting of pain. Some of them have been validated, but without allowing for recording of location-specific pain intensity and for use on a smartphone. This paper describes the initial development of a digital pain manikin to support self-reporting of pain location and location-specific intensity using people’s own mobile device. Subsequently, we conducted reliability and usability tests with eight researchers and seven patient representatives. Test-retest reliability depended on the manikin’s level of detail, but was generally high with most intraclass correlation coefficients ≥0.70 and all similarity coefficients ≥0.50. Participants found the manikin easy to use, but suggested clearer orientation (front/back, certain body locations) and would value additional feedback and diary functions. We will address these issues in the next version of the manikin before conducting a validation study.