My hospital's new pain scale

My hospital just put out a new paper for their pain scale (they never had one before). Based on this, I've been telling them numbers too low! I've been saying 5 when I should have been saying 8!!!

0 - No pain
1 - Hardly notice pain
2 - Notice pain, does not interfere with activities
3 - Sometimes distracts me
4 - Distracts me, can do usual activities
5 - Interrupts some activities
6 - Hard to ignore, avoid usual activities
7 - Focus of attention, prevents doing daily activities
8 - Awful, hard to do anything
9 - Can't bear the pain, unable to do anything
10 - As bad as it could be, nothing else matters.

What do you think?

I like this scale. I've often seen it presented with a cartoon smiley-frown face which I think is pretty helpful too.

When my daughter was struggling with GERD her DR asked her to rate her pain. It was so comically overblown that I almost laughed out loud. I think it's really hard to do this when you're the patient, but it should be easier if you can have a printed scale to work from. I'm glad your hospital put this out.

I think that practice, teddybear, isn't the greatest. Like with my daughter - she was saying 10 while smiling and laughing. Any observer would know that she was not at a 10. If you have pain at a level of 10 you probably wouldn't be able to articulate that at all. I think you'd do better for yourself if you answer honestly and not try to manipulate the intake nurse/doctor.