Effects of Changing Selection Criteria in the Investigation of Pain Onomatopoeia in the Japanese Young and Elder Group

Abstract

Previous studies such as Okuda (2024) have used a described object bipolar numerical evaluation method to examine the characteristics of 12 types of bipolar pain. In this method, research participants were first asked to enter 12 onomatopoeias that they thought were commonly used to describe the characteristics of the presented pain (e.g., sharp-dull pain) in a column. The participants were then asked to rate the extent to which each onomatopoeia expressed the pain in question using a number from 0 to 100 in the provided box. After that, based on the results of previous research, some examinations were conducted on onomatopoeias that met the selection criteria of being selected and described by more than 10% of the research participants and having an average rating of more than 40% of the maximum value. However, because this criteria is not fixed, this study examined the effects of changing the selection description rate from 5% to 33.3% in young and elderly subjects. The results showed that there were differences between the mean values of onomatopoeias that met the criteria for each pain characteristic in both age groups due to differences in the selection description rate. The mean values of onomatopoeias that met the criteria of the young group were significantly higher than those of the elderly group. Appropriate and useful criteria for communication support or education regarding Japanese pain onomatopoeia was discussed.