Which type of pain scale uses numbers and descriptors?

• A. Number scale
• B. Visual rating scale
• C. Visual analog scale
• D. Graphic rating

Answer: (A)

Recognize the distinction between how pain is quantified. A numeric rating scale uses explicit numbers paired with verbal anchors, such as 0 meaning no pain and 10 meaning the worst imaginable pain, with descriptors often included along the scale. This combination of a numeric value plus descriptive endpoints makes it the scale that explicitly uses both numbers and descriptors. Other scales rely on visuals or a marked line without labeled numbers: the visual analog scale uses a line and is interpreted to a number afterward, the visual rating scale uses faces or pictorial cues, and the graphic rating scale uses images or bars. So the numeric rating scale is the one that uses numbers and descriptors.