Subjective data

[cepapai]

When a patient tells you he has a pain level of 5 (1-10 scale). Is this a Subjective data or objective data. I thought it was subjective but I got the answer wrong? What do you think? They said it was wrong because it was given using a pain scale.

[Meriwhen, ASN, BSN, MSN, RN]

IMO pain is always subjective because pain is whatever the patient says it is. You as the nurse have no way of measuring their pain on a scale for yourself. For example, you can say with certainty that a patient's BP is 120/80, but you can't say for certain for certain how intense a patient's pain is--only the patient can accurately answer that question.

I dug out my old Fundamentals book to double-check, and it says the same thing: pain is subjective data because it can be described or verified only by the patient.

Hope this helps!

[OB-nurse2013, BSN, RN]

Same at my school as it says above. Pain is always subjective.

[sandyfeet]

My professor taught us that subjective data is what the subject (patient) tells us, while objective data is what we observe. I cannot observe a pain level of 5 because that means something different to each of us; the patient has to tell me this information. Like mentioned earlier, I can observe a blood pressure reading, or a heart rate. Hope this is helpful!

[Mkpeters]

I had a similar question on an exam; the question was "is a 4/10 on the pain scale subjective or objective". I said subjective, and I got it wrong. My professor told me that normally pain would be subjective, but, because they assigned a scale to it, a 4/10 becomes objective. I disagree with this, because a 4/10 could mean 10 different things for 10 different people, but oh well.