Pain Disability Index
What It Measures
The Pain Disability Index asks a different question from a pain rating: not how much it hurts, but how much it is costing. Seven areas of life are rated for how far pain has disrupted them.
Family and home responsibilities covers chores and duties around the house. Recreation covers hobbies and leisure. Social activity covers time with friends. Occupation covers work, including unpaid work. Sexual behaviour, self-care, and life-support activities — eating, sleeping, breathing — complete the set. Each is rated 0 for no disability to 10 for total disability, summing to a total out of 70. It works across any chronic pain condition rather than being tied to one diagnosis.
Further Reading
Additional Notes
Licensing Notes: The index is reproduced without restriction across clinical resources and trial protocols.
Learn More: A 30% reduction from baseline is commonly treated as clinically meaningful improvement. Note that the occupation item explicitly includes unpaid work such as homemaking and volunteering, which matters when scoring someone who is not employed; the item is about role disruption, not employment status.