Information for healthcare professionals

What is the DoloTest®?

Pain places a significant emotional, physical and social burden on patients,1,2 yet the impact of pain on quality of life is rarely assessed.3,4,5 Pain scales, designed to measure pain intensity, are rarely used1,5 and there is a risk that healthcare professionals can underestimate both its intensity and impact on the patient.6,7,8 Influential guidelines recommend that the impact of pain and the effect of treatment on quality of life should be assessed, including mood, ability to sleep and interpersonal relationships.4,9

The DoloTest® is comprised of eight Visual Analogue Scales (VAS), arranged as spokes in a wheel. It measures the eight most relevant domains where pain impacts on quality of life:

  • Pain
  • Problems with light physical activities, eg everyday tasks at home
  • Problems with more strenuous physical activities, eg walks and physical exercise
  • Problems doing your job
  • Reduced energy and strength
  • Low spirit
  • Reduced social life
  • Problems sleeping

The DoloTest is the only validated pain and quality of life assessment tool to involve the patient in interpreting the result.10 The process helps patients to more effectively describe the impact of pain on their quality of life, so physicians are able to better manage their condition.

The DoloTest is a powerful tool designed to:

  • Educate patients on their condition
  • Improve communication with patients
  • Monitor improvements to a patient's quality of life over time
  • Allow effective assessment of treatment over time

eDoloTest®

Click here to get eDoloTest to YOUR CLINIC

e-DoloTest® provides an unique way for online assessment of pain and health related quality of life. Both the patient and the healthcare professional can access e-DoloTest® on the internet. This make communication and both exact and documented assessment available without the patient need to come to the clinic every time. The visual DoloTest®-Profile allow easy and precise communication about the condition, evaluating response to treatment and goal setting. e-DoloTest® is also a very efficient and easy way to supervise and monitor a patients condition – even at distance.

In e-DoloTest® the patient has access to a DoloTest® making scoring using mouse clicks. The DoloTest® will automatically rotate and draw the DoloTest®-Profile. When the patient has completed a DoloTest, a notification is sent to the health-care provider, who have access to comparing with previously DoloTest®-Profiles and scores as well as getting a report with both numerically and visually presentation of the test results, the visual presentation is shown in the picture below. The DoloTest®-Report can be saved as pdf and attached the patient’s file. An in-debt analysis of the scoring on each domain and comparison with other domains are also available. By a single click all the patients data are transferred to an Excel spread sheet to be used in research or other analysis.

Scoring made on DoloTest® in the paper version is easily entered to e-DoloTest ®system and can be used in all e-DoloTest features.

Patients can get accesss to the system from their care providers, who sign up for using e-DoloTest ®system

Patients scoring can be shared by the whole clinic.

  1. Breivik J, Collett B, Ventafriddaet V et al. Survey of chronic pain in Europe: prevalence, impact on daily life, and treatment. European Journal of Pain 2006; 10: 287-333
  2. Sjogren P, Ekholm O, Peuckmann V et al. Epidemiology of chronic pain in Denmark: An update. European Journal of Pain 2009; 13, 287–292
  3. PainSTORY (Pain Study Tracking Ongoing Responses for a Year) 2009. 6th Congress of The European Federation of Chapters of the International Association for the Study of Pain (EFIC), Lisbon, Portugal, 10th September 2009
  4. Practice guidelines for chronic pain management: An updated report by the American society of anesthesiologists task force on chronic pain management and the American society of regional anesthesia and pain medicine. Anesthesiology 2010, Jan 29
  5. Department of Health. 150 years of the annual report of the Chief Medical Officer 2009. Available from: http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/AnnualReports/DH_096206 Last accessed: 22 July 2010
  6. Miller WL, Yanoshik MK, Crabtree BF et al. Patients, family physicians, and pain: visions from interview narratives. Family Medicine Journal. 1994; 26: 179-184
  7. Forrest M, Hermann G, Andersen B. Assessment of pain: a comparison between patients and doctors. Acta Anaesthesiologica Scandinavica. 1989; 33: 255-256
  8. Bertakis KD, Azari R, Callahan EJ. Patient pain in primary care: factors that influence physician diagnosis. Annals of Family Medicine 2004; 2: 224-30
  9. Kalso E, Allan L, Dellemijn PLI et al. Recommendations for using opioids in chronic non-cancer pain. European Journal of Pain 2003;7(5):381-6
  10. Kristiansen K, Lyngholm-Kjaerby P, Moe C. Introduction and validation of DoloTest: A new health-related quality of life assessment tool use in pain patients. Pain Practice 2010. Epub ahead of print. DOI. 10.1111/j.1533-2500.2010.00366