Pain assessment terminology in the NCBO bioportal: Evaluation and recommendations

The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) publishes since 1986 a relatively frequently updated list of pain terms currently known as the 'IASP Taxonomy'. It was examined how nine terms defined in this taxonomy and used by pain specialists to describe findings of somatosensory testing and pain assessment are classified in the representational artifacts accepted in the NCBO BioPortal. It was found that the majority of the BioPortal resources cover the terms poorly and that the quality of the hierarchies and the mappings are below acceptable quality standards. It is concluded that without the BioPortal studies of this nature are hard to perform, but also that for the BioPortal to become an instrument which is useful for other purposes than determining that its content is of poor quality, the internal quality assurance principles used for its development and maintenance need to be improved and documented.