WANI Dictionary

NRS, numeric rating scale

The numeric (or numerical) rating scale (NRS) is a numeric scale to represent the pain intensity. Typically, subjects rate their pain on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 to 20, or 0 to 100, where 0 means "no pain" and 10, 20, and 100 mean "the maximum pain (the most intense pain imaginable)."

Definitions in the literature

• An NRS typically consists of a series of numbers with verbal anchors representing the entire possible range of pain intensity. Generally, patients rate their pain from 0 to 10, from 0 to 20, or from 0 to 100. Zero represents “no pain” while the 10, 20, or 100 represents the opposite end of the pain continuum (e.g., “the most intense pain imaginable,” “pain as intense as it could be,” “maximum pain”) [1].