Putting Pain to Paper: Endometriosis and the Documentation of Suffering

Emma Whelan
In: Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine · 2003 · vol. 7(4) , pp. 463–482 · doi:10.1177/13634593030074005 · W2130964851
article OA: closed CC0 ⤵ 30 in-corpus citations
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⚙ AI-generated summary by claude@2026-06, 2026-06-06 ⓘ

This paper examines two endometriosis pain documentation systems, arguing that they measure perspectives on pain rather than pain itself and are shaped by the epistemological communities that create them.

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Abstract

Although the elusive and subjective nature of pain has been examined in compelling ways in health studies, the implications for systems of pain documentation and measurement remain relatively unexplored. Two systems for the documentation of pain symptoms in women with endometriosis are examined, one developed by a gynaecological association and the other by a woman with the disease. All pain documentation systems must contend with a fundamental problem: that they permit the comparison only of accounts of pain, not of pains themselves. These two instruments shift attention away from the pain itself to evaluations of the perspectives of those accounting for and evaluating pain. It is argued that systems of pain measurement and documentation, rather than offering objective readings of pain, must be seen as the products of epistemological communities with particular interests, aims and methods which affect the construction of pain and its subjects.

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Condition tags

endometriosis

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Papers in the corpus that this work cites (lower rings, blue) and that cite this one (upper rings, green). Dot size scales with the paper's in-corpus citation count — bigger dot = more influential within the endo/adeno field. Click a dot to open that paper. [ expand to 2 hops ] — adds papers reached through this work's immediate citers/citees. Heavier; up to 60 extra dots.

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