Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale

ChristineN, BSN, RN · Jan 9, 2009

Even as a peds nurse, I see how b and d could both be considered right. Maybe d is "more right."

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jan 9, 2009

the wong-baker faces pain scale:

a. is not as reliable as other pain scales

b. describes what the person is feeling

c. is item scored between 0.5 and 0.7

d. consists of 6 cartoon faces

you need to look at the actual faces scale a little bit more closely and then at these answer choices to see why the first 3 answer choices are wrong. this is a straight out knowledge question. answer a is an opinion. answer b is wrong because the scale describes

pain

not feelings. answer c is wrong because the scoring is in

whole numbers

not decimals. here is the scale along with instructions on how to use it:

http://www.mdanderson.org/pdf/pted_painscale_faces.pd

f

. the patient is to

choose the face

that best represents how they feel.

Purple_Scrubs, BSN, RN · Jan 9, 2009

I picked d. too, but my logic was that b. is wrong because describing the pain to me means the quality of the pain (stabbing, dull, etc). Maybe my logic was wrong but I'm glad I got there in the end :)

lynzjo12 · Jan 9, 2009

Thanks for your response. I understand that (d) is correct, I am not debating that. I don't understand why it is more correct then (b). The literature on the development of the scale reports a lot on gaining information on the patient's "feelings". When answering the question I was inferring that the feelings were related to pain, just as how you would have to infer that the 6 cartoon faces are representative to pain and not something else.

Daytonite, BSN, RN · Jan 10, 2009

Thanks for your response. I understand that (d) is correct, I am not debating that. I don't understand why it is more correct then (b). The literature on the development of the scale reports a lot on gaining information on the patient's "feelings". When answering the question I was inferring that the feelings were related to pain, just as how you would have to infer that the 6 cartoon faces are representative to pain and not something else.

What specific feelings do you think this scale gains information about? The only information this scale reveals any information about is the level of pain the patient has! This scale is a pain assessment tool that is used with children and people who cannot speak or cannot understand English in order to communicate to us what their level of pain is for care planning and nursing intervention purposes. How you are making the jump to people's "feelings" is puzzling. Feelings are emotions. Keep in mind that in assessment of pain, we are attempting to make a measure of the pain for our care planning evaluation. We often ask patients to tell us what their pain is on a scale of 0 to 10. The Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale is a way to do that. You are reading too much into the question. This is a simple question that is testing your knowledge of what the Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale is. It is simply 6 cartoon faces. This scale simply helps to describes the level of pain a person feels.

mpzj4 · Oct 2, 2009

What specific feelings do you think this scale gains information about? The only information this scale reveals any information about is the level of pain the patient has! This scale is a pain assessment tool that is used with children and people who cannot speak or cannot understand English in order to communicate to us what their level of pain is for care planning and nursing intervention purposes. How you are making the jump to people's "feelings" is puzzling. Feelings are emotions. Keep in mind that in assessment of pain, we are attempting to make a measure of the pain for our care planning evaluation. We often ask patients to tell us what their pain is on a scale of 0 to 10. The Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale is a way to do that. You are reading too much into the question. This is a simple question that is testing your knowledge of what the Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale is. It is simply 6 cartoon faces. This scale simply helps to describes the level of pain a person feels.

The question stated whether or not the wong-baker pain rating scale "describes what a person is feeling". We all feel pain. The scale is ment for a patient to rate the severity of the pain that they feel. It does not state anything about "feelings". :stone:(:imbar:cry: :crying2:

CuriousMe · Oct 2, 2009

Thanks for your response. I understand that (d) is correct, I am not debating that. I don't understand why it is more correct then (b). The literature on the development of the scale reports a lot on gaining information on the patient's "feelings". When answering the question I was inferring that the feelings were related to pain, just as how you would have to infer that the 6 cartoon faces are representative to pain and not something else.

There are a lot of tools that help a person describe what they are feeling....only the Wong-Baker FACES rating scale uses the cartoon faces. D is a much more specific answer....that makes it more right.

EricJRN, MSN, RN · Oct 2, 2009

Old thread, but Daytonite brings up a good point that some people miss: this is a self-report scale, so it can't be used with all patient populations. (That won't really help you pin down this particular answer, but it's an important point about this pain scale.)

At a NICU where I was working recently, we had a wound care team working with a premature neonate. They documented a 'Wong-Baker 2' in the progress note. I wasn't trying to grill them, but was curious how they used FACES with a nonverbal patient. The team member explained to me that they look at the faces themselves and pick the one that most resembles the baby's face during the procedure. :no:

XYcsccSN · Oct 2, 2009

sounds like they used the wong pain scale, flacc is probably what should have been used in the nicu.