Pain Scale Chart

How to use this pain scale chart

1. Say who the rating is for. Age, whether they can tell you about the pain themselves, and where you are. Those three answers are what decides which scale is valid — a newborn, a toddler, a teenager and a sedated adult in intensive care each need a different instrument.
2. Use the scale it picks, or override it with any of the ten chips. If you override, the tool keeps your choice and quietly notes which one it would have used.
3. Rate the pain. Self-report scales give you a level to tap, a face to pick or a line to drag. The observational scales give you a scoring grid: score each row from what you can actually see, and the total builds as you go.
4. Read the band, not just the number. The result shows both published conventions side by side, plus what that level typically means for daily function.
5. Print or share it. The PDF is a clean branded chart to hand to a clinician, and the link reopens on the exact reading you were looking at.

Why this chart is different from other pain scale charts

Most pain scale pages online ship one thing: a 0–10 list of descriptions, often the same syndicated text reprinted under a different hospital's logo. A few name the other scales in prose without ever showing you one. Almost none of them can be used on the patient in front of you. Here's what this version does differently:

• Ten scales, all usable. The 0–10 numeric scale, VAS, verbal words, Wong-Baker FACES, FPS-R, DVPRS, and the four observational instruments — FLACC, PAINAD, CRIES and CPOT — in one place instead of scattered across ten pages and a dozen PDFs.
• It tells you which one to use. No other chart asks who the rating is for. That question decides everything, because a self-report scale handed to someone who cannot self-report produces a confident, wrong number.
• The observational scales actually score. FLACC, PAINAD, CRIES and CPOT are scored instruments, not pictures. Everywhere else they're printed as a static grid you tally in your head. Here you tap what you see and the total, band and cutoff compute as you go.
• Both severity bands, side by side. There are two published conventions and they disagree about one number. Every other chart picks one silently.
• Printable and embeddable, free. Clinics, schools, care homes, hospices and patient-education sites can print the chart or copy one line of code and host the whole interactive tool with attribution.

How the scales work

Every scale here resolves to the same 0–10 shape, which is what lets them be compared at all. What changes is how the number is produced: the person says it, points at it, marks it on a line, or you derive it from behaviour you can see.

The two banding conventions. The version most hospitals and patient handouts use runs 1–3 mild, 4–6 moderate, 7–10 severe. The other comes from Serlin and colleagues in 1995, who worked backwards from how much the pain actually interfered with function, and landed on 1–4 mild, 5–6 moderate, 7–10 severe. The US Department of Defense's DVPRS uses those same function-derived cutpoints. The only score they disagree about is a 4, which is exactly the score where a treatment threshold set at "moderate" starts to matter.

The faces scales exist because converting a feeling into a number is hard for children, for anyone in distress, and across language barriers. Wong-Baker FACES and the Faces Pain Scale – Revised both score 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10. FPS-R has no smile and no tears, so a child rates the pain rather than their mood, and it's validated from roughly age 4 to 16. Because the faces only exist at the even numbers, an odd 0–10 score has no official face — this tool says it falls between two faces rather than inventing a rounding rule that doesn't exist.

The VAS is a 100 mm line marked anywhere along its length, which gives finer resolution than whole numbers. Its published bands are 0–4 mm no pain, 5–44 mm mild, 45–74 mm moderate, and 75–100 mm severe.

The observational scales score behaviour instead of a report. FLACC and PAINAD each score five domains from 0 to 2 for a 0–10 total. CRIES does the same for newborns after surgery, where a total above 4 is the commonly used trigger to give analgesia and reassess. CPOT scores four domains for a 0–8 total in critically ill adults, where a total above 2 indicates significant pain.

What counts as a real change. Farrar and colleagues found that a reduction of about 2 points, or about 30%, is what patients experience as a clinically important improvement. That matters more than the absolute number: a drop from 8 to 6 is a real result even though 6 still sounds bad. If a reading stays at 4 or above for more than a few days, that's the point to look at what you're doing at home — our reviews of TENS units, heating pads and lidocaine patches cover the options most people reach for first.

Three worked examples

A toddler the day after surgery

An 18-month-old is home after a hernia repair and cannot tell you anything useful about pain. Answering "infant or toddler" and "no" gives FLACC. Watching him: an occasional frown, legs restless, squirming in the cot, whimpering on and off, but he settles when you pick him up. That's 1 for face, 1 for legs, 1 for activity, 1 for cry and 0 for consolability — a total of 4, which is moderate pain. That says the dose is due rather than that something has gone wrong, and the trend over the next few hours is what tells you which.

A nursing-home resident with advanced dementia

An 84-year-old resident with advanced dementia has become withdrawn and resists being moved. She can't report pain, so the tool gives PAINAD. Over five minutes during personal care: occasional laboured breathing, repeated troubled calling out, a sad frightened expression, tense and fidgeting, distracted only briefly by a familiar voice. Scored 1, 2, 1, 1, 1, that's a total of 6 — moderate pain. Without a scale this presents as agitation and gets treated as behaviour; with one, it reads as pain and gets treated as pain.

An adult with lower back pain before an appointment

A 45-year-old tracking two weeks of back pain before a physio appointment marks the VAS line at 62 mm on a bad afternoon. That's moderate, and about a 6 on the 0–10 scale her clinic will actually record. The fortnight of marks is the useful part: mornings near 30 mm, afternoons past 60 mm after a day at a desk. That pattern beats any single remembered number.

Frequently asked questions

Is a 4 mild or moderate?

Both, depending on which published convention is used, and it's the only score where this happens. The common clinical bands call a 4 moderate. The function-derived cutpoints from Serlin's 1995 work, which the DoD's DVPRS also uses, call it mild. If a care plan says "treat at moderate," that one number decides the answer — so say the band out loud rather than assuming the person listening uses the same one you do.

Which pain scale should I use for a child?

It depends on whether they can tell you. A child who can self-report does better with faces than numbers: the Faces Pain Scale – Revised is validated from about age 4 to 16, and Wong-Baker FACES works from age 3 upward. A child who can't self-report needs an observational scale, which is FLACC. Newborns after surgery have their own scale, CRIES.

How do you assess pain in someone who is sedated or ventilated?

With CPOT, which was built for critically ill adults and scores facial expression, body movements, muscle tension and either ventilator compliance or vocalisation. A total above 2 indicates significant pain and should prompt treatment. For an adult with advanced dementia outside intensive care, PAINAD is the more usual choice.

Is the 0–10 pain scale accurate?

It's reliable for tracking one person over time and much weaker for comparing two people. One person's 4 and another's 4 are not the same experience, which is why anchoring the number to function — can you sleep, eat, walk, concentrate — carries more information than the number alone. Use it as a trend line, not a measurement.

Can I embed this chart on my own site?

Yes. Copy the snippet at the bottom of this page. The embedded version is a stripped-down variant built for clinics, care homes, hospices, school nurse offices, PT practices and patient-education sites. Required attribution is included and there is no fee.

Related tools

• Wong-Baker FACES Pain Scale — the faces scale in depth, with a saved pain log and a clinician-ready PDF.
• Blood Pressure Log — the same tracking idea applied to readings between appointments.
• Prednisone Taper Schedule — for anyone managing an inflammatory flare alongside pain.
• Browse all free tools by Dr. Taylor →

Dr. Taylor's at-home recommendations

For pain that sits in the mild-to-moderate range and isn't resolving on its own, three categories cover most situations at home. Each links to the full review with current picks and honest trade-offs:

• Best TENS Units — drug-free electrical pulses for muscle, joint and back pain, useful when you'd rather not add another oral medication.
• Best Heating Pads — moist or dry heat for muscle tension and joint stiffness. The most underrated pain tool in most homes.
• Best Lidocaine Patches — eight to twelve hours of targeted topical numbing for pain with a clear location.

Sources & methodology

• Serlin RC, Mendoza TR, Nakamura Y, Edwards KR, Cleeland CS. When is cancer pain mild, moderate or severe? Grading pain severity by its interference with function. Pain. 1995;61(2):277–284. PubMed
• Hawker GA, Mian S, Kendzerska T, French M. Measures of adult pain: VAS, NRS, MPQ and others. Arthritis Care Res. 2011;63(S11):S240–52. PubMed
• Hicks CL, von Baeyer CL, Spafford PA, van Korlaar I, Goodenough B. The Faces Pain Scale–Revised. Pain. 2001;93(2):173–183. IASP
• Merkel SI, Voepel-Lewis T, Shayevitz JR, Malviya S. The FLACC: a behavioral scale for scoring postoperative pain in young children. Pediatr Nurs. 1997;23(3):293–297. PubMed
• Warden V, Hurley AC, Volicer L. Development and psychometric evaluation of the PAINAD scale. J Am Med Dir Assoc. 2003;4(1):9–15. PubMed
• Krechel SW, Bildner J. CRIES: a new neonatal postoperative pain measurement score. Paediatr Anaesth. 1995;5(1):53–61. PubMed
• Gélinas C, Fillion L, Puntillo KA, Viens C, Fortier M. Validation of the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool in adult patients. Am J Crit Care. 2006;15(4):420–427. PubMed
• Farrar JT, Young JP, LaMoreaux L, Werth JL, Poole RM. Clinical importance of changes in chronic pain intensity measured on an 11-point numerical pain rating scale. Pain. 2001;94(2):149–158. PubMed
• Defense & Veterans Center for Integrative Pain Management — DVPRS.
• Wong-Baker FACES Foundation — canonical scale, history and licensing terms.

Every band edge, cutoff and mapping on this page runs from one tested data file, and the figures quoted in the copy above are checked against it on every build. This tool is reviewed annually. About Dr. Taylor · Last reviewed September 18, 2026.

Embed this tool on your site

Free for clinics, care homes, hospices, schools, PT practices, patient-education sites and personal blogs. Required attribution is included in the snippet. No fee, no account.

<iframe
  src="https://bestrateddocs.com/pain-scale-chart/embed/"
  width="100%"
  height="760"
  loading="lazy"
  style="border:1px solid #e8dfeb; border-radius:16px; max-width:760px;"
  title="Pain Scale Chart (BestRatedDocs)">
</iframe>
<p style="font-size:12px;color:#666;margin-top:8px">
  Pain scale chart by
  <a href="https://bestrateddocs.com/pain-scale-chart/">BestRatedDocs</a>
  &middot; Reviewed by Dr. David Taylor, MD, PhD
</p>