<p class="first" id="d1042979e311">The current International Association for the Study
of Pain (IASP) definition of pain
as "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience associated with actual or potential
tissue damage, or described in terms of such damage" was recommended by the Subcommittee
on Taxonomy and adopted by the IASP Council in 1979. This definition has become accepted
widely by health care professionals and researchers in the pain field and adopted
by several professional, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations, including
the World Health Organization. In recent years, some in the field have reasoned that
advances in our understanding of pain warrant a reevaluation of the definition and
have proposed modifications. Therefore, in 2018, the IASP formed a 14-member, multinational
Presidential Task Force comprising individuals with broad expertise in clinical and
basic science related to pain, to evaluate the current definition and accompanying
note and recommend whether they should be retained or changed. This review provides
a synopsis of the critical concepts, the analysis of comments from the IASP membership
and public, and the committee's final recommendations for revisions to the definition
and notes, which were discussed over a 2-year period. The task force ultimately recommended
that the definition of pain be revised to "An unpleasant sensory and emotional experience
associated with, or resembling that associated with, actual or potential tissue damage,"
and that the accompanying notes be updated to a bulleted list that included the etymology.
The revised definition and notes were unanimously accepted by the IASP Council early
this year.
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