Assessing children's and adolescents' pain.
Problems related to the complex task of pain assessment in children and adolescents are identified. Solutions to the problems are presented by describing a variety of tools currently available to assess three distinct dimensions of pain: location, intensity, and quality. Characteristics and strengths of a variety of tools are discussed and examples of each are included. Presented are body outlines to report location, and a variety of tools appropriate for measuring intensity from young preschoolers to adolescents. Worldwide current work describing the development of word lists to describe childhood pain quality is summarized.
Savedra
M C
MC
Department of Family Health Care Nursing, University of California, San Francisco.
Tesler
M D
MD
D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002675:Child, Preschool; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D010146:Pain / Q000209:etiology*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods*