Pedagogy Hospital: Pediatric Pain

The assessment tools pediatric pain provide access to the patient's subjective state with the dual aim of:

- Get as much information on the different dimensions of pain perception (intensity, location, duration, frequency).
- Assess their cognitions and emotional reactions to the pain experience.

These aspects can only be known through introspection, proving very difficult to do from the assessments of parents or health workers, making self-reports in almost indispensable tools in the evaluation of pain. They are widely used in research and hospital practice as useful to get a quick view of the difficulties of the patient on which to investigate further. They can serve as a measure pre / post-treatment and as a means to reach a description 'objective' of the subjectivity of the individual.

The child self-report is generally the most reliable and valid measure of pain for the pediatric patient, provided that the instrument used is appropriate and suits the age and socio-cultural characteristics of the child. For example, faces scales are useful for school children but not for children under 2 years.

There are several types of self-reports to suit different needs and stages of development of pediatric patients. The most common methods are:

A. Projective methods
B. Interviews
C. Scales
D. Questionnaires
E. Shelf  

The latter three are the most used by the simplicity of the procedure and they adapt better to the rapid and reliable assessment as required in hospitals. Less attention has been given the interview and projective tests.