Use of pain-behavioral assessment tools in the nursing home: expert consensus recommendations for practice.
Many tools are available for the assessment of pain in nonverbal older adults; however, guidelines are needed to help clinicians select the proper instrument for use in the nursing home setting. This article describes a project to identify clinically useful pain-behavioral assessment tools that have undergone sufficient psychometric testing. Phase 1 of the project included a comprehensive review and critique of currently available tools. In Phase 2 the National Nursing Home Pain Collaborative developed criteria to evaluate an updated list of tools and then rated 14 tools using these criteria. As a result, two tools were recommended as most representative of current state of the science, most clinically relevant, and practically applicable to integrate into everyday practice and support adherence to regulatory guidelines. Such recommendations for selection of best-available pain assessment tools are a cornerstone for clinicians in regard to managing pain of nursing home residents who, due to dementia, are unable to self-report pain.
The University of Iowa College of Nursing, Iowa City, Iowa, USA. keela-herr@uiowa.edu
Keela
K
Herr
Heide
H
Bursch
Mary
M
Ersek
Lois L
LL
Miller
Kristen
K
Swafford
D000368:Aged; D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D003144:Communication Barriers; D015577:Geriatric Assessment / Q000379:methods*; D005851:Geriatric Nursing / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D009633:Nonverbal Communication; D009730:Nursing Assessment / Q000379:methods; D015403:Nursing Evaluation Research; D009735:Nursing Homes; D010146:Pain / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis*; D010147:Pain Measurement / Q000379:methods* / Q000451:nursing / Q000592:standards; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011594:Psychometrics; D015203:Reproducibility of Results