[PICUNurse Deb]

I am doing an evidence-based practice project in my PICU in the hope that we can improve our pain assessment and documentation. We currently use the CRIES, PEPPS, FACES and Numeric Rating Scale, depending on the age of the child. Documentation is terrible, and I suspect it is because we have too many scales & they are not appropriate for our population. Has anyone done this type of project? Who is using the FLACC scale? In what age group & population? What has anyone used for an assessment of nurses' knowledge and attitude concerning pain assessment? We need to do pre- and post-implementation assessments to see if we have made a significant improvement by replacing our current scales with the FLACC. Any advice you can give me would be most appreciated!

[TRichter]

WE currently use FLACC for children under 2 or so, for those that can't communicate, and those mentally challenged. Faces until they reach around 7 or 8, then the numerica scale. This time frame was develped by Pain Management team consisting of MDs and NPs and RNs.

Originally Posted by PICUNurse Deb

I am doing an evidence-based practice project in my PICU in the hope that we can improve our pain assessment and documentation. We currently use the CRIES, PEPPS, FACES and Numeric Rating Scale, depending on the age of the child. Documentation is terrible, and I suspect it is because we have too many scales & they are not appropriate for our population. Has anyone done this type of project? Who is using the FLACC scale? In what age group & population? What has anyone used for an assessment of nurses' knowledge and attitude concerning pain assessment? We need to do pre- and post-implementation assessments to see if we have made a significant improvement by replacing our current scales with the FLACC. Any advice you can give me would be most appreciated!

[netties]

in the past 18 months our facility switched from a home grown pain assessment tool to the flacc and i can tell you we love it. we use it on all patients greater than 28 days (we use the n-pass for those younger) until they are able to comprehend the faces scale. we especially like being able to use the flacc in the middle of the night and patients who may be able to use the faces or numeric scale while awake, but who wants to wake a patient just to see if they are in pain. duh? also, we REALLY like using the flacc on developmentally delayed/special needs patients. we seem to be having much better feedback from families that they feel their childs pain was well managed. hope this helps!!!