The Faces Pain Scale - Revised (FPS-R) was adapted from the Faces Pain Scale (Bieri et al, 1990) in order to make it possible to score on the widely accepted 0-to-10 metric. It shows a close linear relationship with visual analog pain scales across the age range 4 through 16 years. It is easy to administer and requires no equipment except for the photocopied faces. The absence of smiles and tears in this faces scale may be advantageous. The FPS-R is recommended for use with younger children in parallel with numerical self-rating scales (0-to-10) for older children and behavioural observation scales for those unable to provide self-report.

Permission for use

No permission is required for clinical and research use of the FPS-R.

For reproduction of the FPS-R in a journal, book, or web page, or for any commercial use of the scale, request permission from the copyright owner, the International Association for the Study of Pain, using this permission form. A nominal royalty payment may be required. Guidelines for captioning and reproduction of the scale will be provided with permission.

References

Bieri D, Reeve R, Champion GD, Addicoat L, Ziegler J. The Faces Pain Scale for the self-assessment of the severity of pain experienced by children: Development, initial validation and preliminary investigation for ratio scale properties. Pain, 1990;41:139-150.

Hicks CL, von Baeyer CL, Spafford P, van Korlaar I, Goodenough B. The Faces Pain Scale - Revised: Toward a common metric in pediatric pain measurement. Pain 2001;93:173-183.

Spagrud LJ, Piira T, von Baeyer CL. Children's self-report of pain intensity: The Faces Pain Scale - Revised. American Journal of Nursing 2003;103(12):62-64.

von Baeyer CL, Piira T. The Faces Pain Scale - Revised (FPS-R) around the world: Translation and adaptation for use in many cultures. Poster, 6th International Symposium on Paediatric Pain, Special Interest Group on Pain in Childhood, International Association for the Study of Pain, Sydney, Australia. Also presented to Canadian Pain Society, Toronto. Pain Research and Management, 2003;8 (Supp. B), 57B.

Download PDF containing the FPS-R face images and instructions (in French and English)

Download PDF containing FPS-R instructions (in French, English and 45 other languages)

Note: Fonts for a few languages might not transfer correctly from Word to PDF format, or from one computer to another. (For example, there is a known difficulty with the Laotian and Tamil scripts in the PDF.) If you have trouble with the font, try using the following Word document instead of the PDF version.

Download Word 2003 document containing FPS-R instructions (in French, English and 45 other languages - 2.8 megabytes)

PDF (portable document format) files provide consistent presentation across operating systems (MacOS, Windows, Linux, etc.). To view and/or print PDF files you will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Translations available as of March 2010

1. Albanian
2. Arabic
3. Bulgarian
4. Catalan
5. Chichewa
6. Chinese
7. Czech
8. Dutch
9. Dutch (Belgium)
10. Estonian
11. French
12. German (Germany)
13. German (Switzerland)
14. Greek
15. Hebrew
16. Hindi
17. Hungarian (Magyar)
18. Indonesian
19. Italian
20. Japanese
21. Kannada (India)
22. Laotian
23. Latvian
24. Lithuanian