Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-4rdpn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-31T22:39:31.875Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Assessment of pain

from General considerations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2009

Stephen H. Thomas
Affiliation:
Harvard Medical School
Get access

Summary

Pain assessment plays an integral role in the ongoing efforts to improve overall pain management in the acute care setting. This chapter overviews the pain assessment process and outlines some pain rating tools that have been useful in the acute care setting. Some form of explicit pain assessment is necessary, since studies in myriad patient populations have failed to identify consistently reliable surrogate markers for pain. Despite pitfalls in self-reported pain scores, it is important for the objective pain rating to come from the patient. In clinical practice, the most commonly used rating scale is the verbal numeric rating scale. The advantages of the verbal numeric rating scale include ease of administration and high agreement with the visual analog scales used in most clinical pain management studies in acute care. In older adults who are cognitively intact, numerical rating scales or simple verbal reports of pain categories are preferred.
Type
Chapter
Information
Emergency Department Analgesia
An Evidence-Based Guide
, pp. 10 - 18
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2008

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×