Abstract

Pain extent is a separate and distinct domain from intensity and refers to the overall number of body areas with pain. Research suggests that this pain domain may also be important to patient functioning. For example, Trait and colleagues found a significant association between pain extent and the tendency of patients to report greater complaints of weakness, fatigue, and depression. Similarly, Toomey and colleagues reported that patients with more pain sites were more likely to report pain as having a greater negative impact in their functioning