Pain is a prevailing and common symptom across rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMD). Clinically, acute and chronic pain are distinct, are managed differently, and have differences in outcomes. The majority of people who experience acute pain tend to improve spontaneously or under treatment, but some individuals progress to a chronic pain that can cause considerable physical, emotional, and socioeconomic burdens. To identify preventive or effectively tailored interventions, standardized pain assessment in clinical trials is essential to making precise estimates on the effectiveness of interventions.

To establish a research agenda for harmonizing pain assessment in clinical trials in RMD, information is needed regarding:

1) The importance of chronic pain in patients with RMD;

2) To what extent patients with chronic pain and RMD feel different from patients with chronic pain of other origin;

3) Whether the pain experience is different across RMD;

4) The existing pain recommendations in COS for RMD;

5) To what extent pain measurement differs across RMD;

6) The relative contribution of different pain mechanisms (e.g., central sensitization, neuropathic pain) to the patient’s experience of pain