Pain Attention
A Closer Look into Pain Management
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Measuring
Pain

Goals Of Pain Assessment

Important goals of the initial assessment of pain include establishing a patient-doctor relation and informing the patient on how the pain will be assessed. These processes help to engage the patient, promote appropriate expectations of treatment, and encourage a coordinated approach to management of the pain. The main objective is to obtain information that will help identify the cause of the pain and guide its treatment.1

patient perspective

The Patient Perspective

The patient’s self-report of pain should be considered as the most reliable indicator of pain.

This should comprise past medical history, medications, habits such as smoking and alcohol, and family and psychosocial history.1

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Measurement Of Pain

Tools for pain assessment include unidimensional scales and multidimensional tools. Simple rating scales assess a single dimension of pain, such as patient self-report of pain intensity.

While these are useful to assess acute pain that has a well-defined cause (e.g., postoperative pain), rating scales may oversimplify the assessment of pain in some cases.

Considering this, the use of multidimensional tools in the assessment of complex or persistent pain is often recommended, especially for chronic pain.1

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measurement
MC-I305-15-2024
Data preparation: January 2024

  1. Pain: Current Understanding of Assessment, Management and Treatments. Developed by NPC as part of a collaborative project with JCAHO (2001)