Pediatric pain measurement using a visual analogue scale: a comparison of two teaching methods.

The goals of this study were to evaluate the validity of the visual analogue scale (VAS) for young children and to compare a newly developed method of teaching children to use a VAS with one used in our previous studies. It was hypothesized that the new method would increase the number of children who understand the VAS and correctly mark their responses on the VAS line. The association between child's age and ability to understand the VAS was also evaluated.