Rate Your Pain

[Joe V]

Pain is very personal and subjective. It's difficult to assess just how much pain a patient is experiencing. There is no blood test or X-ray or other diagnostic study to measure pain. Nurses and other healthcare providers often utilize different types of tools such as rating pain on a numeric scale or pointing to the face that best describes how the patient feels when in pain. But, in the end, pain is still subjective and many factors can affect just how useful these tools can be. How often do you utilize these pain rating scales? Which ones? How valuable are these to you as a Nurse? Tell us your stories.

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[Midazzled]

My previous comment was a bit rant-y and kinda juvenile. My real issue with pain scales is the way that they get used, and how we are expected to use them. It's not a vital sign. Treat the patient, not the number.

Nutella hit the nail on the head.

[3ringnursing, BSN]

I trust when someone tells me their pain is severe that it is. How could I possibly prove otherwise?

[traumaholic, BSN, RN]

I ask about pain with every patient. I get a lot of 7/10+ pain. Pain is not the same for every person but when someone has a history of drug abuse and describes their pain 10/10 but childbirth was 1,000,000/10 I have to question that. Also I have had quite of few people tell me no pain and as soon as they get to the hospital they are crying in pain wanting a refill on their prescription.

[JadedCPN, BSN, RN]

Harveyslake said:

Yes, the 10/10 pain scale is meaningless. I was in the ER as a patient once with abdominal pain. I was asked the standard questions about pain. I honestly stated it was a 10/10 because it was the worst pain I've ever had,....but, I followed with it was annoying pain but tolerable. 10/10 pain is not always debilitating, excruciating pain. Stupid, subjective pain scale. Completely meaningless. Next!

Ditto! I recently had preventative double mastectomies that required an overnight hospital stay. I've had many abdominal surgeries in the past and consider that I have a high pain tolerance, but this was truly "the most pain I've ever felt in my life." I explained to the nurse that technically based on those standards, yes it was a 10 out of 10 but at the same time I could bear through it with oral pain medication rather than IV.

I don't know an alternative to the subjective pain scales. In pediatric world if they are under a certain age or of a certain developmental level, we use a little less subjective scales like FLACC but even that can be left up to some nursing interpretation.