Assessing children's responses to pain

Abstract

This study explored children's self-assessment of the pain experience. Using a 10 cm scale with the ends marked 'I have no pain' and 'I have very severe pain,' school-age children rated the severity of their pain. The pain scale responses were related to physiologic parameters; body, facial, and vocal indicators of pain; and word descriptors of pain while controlling for the effects of medications given. Both the magnitude of chi-square values and the measures of association supported the validity of the pain scale as an indicator of the pain level of school-age children.