Assessing pain in pediatrics

[stnurse421]

I am in my last year of nursing school and am currently in my Pediatric rotation for clinical. This semester we have studied assessing pain and the management of pain. I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas or tips about the best way to assess pain in children. The care of children is so much more different than adults and I could use this valuable information in my care of children for the next several weeks. Thanks!!

Christie

[prmenrs, RN]

There is a smiley face one scaled 1-5, I think it came from Whaley and Wong, but not sure. The clinical setting should have a tool they are using--JACHO is real big on that right now. There is also the Premature Infant Pain Score (PIPS), not exactly user-friendly, but the ony score that takes gestational age in account, and the Newborn Infant Pain Score (NIPS).

I don't have the references, but I'm sure you can find them. GL!!

[debbyed]

We currently use the Smiley faces and they work great. Kids also appear to be much more honest in their assessment of their pain with them (than adults with the 0-10 scale, almost all say 10).

I have ofter used the faces with our older population who don't quite grasp the 0-10 scale as well.

[nur20]

There are several scales: The faces scale (Wong & Baker), The numeric scale, The Poker chip scale (Hester, Foster & Kristeensen). And of course, the usual symptoms moaning,crying, teeth grinding, restless and irritability .

[APinkston]

I am doing my Ped. rotation at Scottish Rite. The nurses there use the smiley face scale to assess pain. I think this is a great scale to use for children because it is better to understand for them. They can associate different faces with feelings and point to the face they are expressing (this is a way of communicating their level of pain). If a child is too young to understand the faces on the scale (most likely an infant), an assessment pain tool can be used to help determine the level of pain.