Pain Assessment

1184 Words3 Pages

PAIN ASSESSMENT IN THE NON-COMMUNICATIVE CRITICALLY ILL PATIENTS IN THE ICU.

Introduction
Pain is a common and distressing indication in critically ill patients(Mindy Stites, 2013).
It is a substantial challenge in critically ill adults, especially those who are not capable of communicating their pain level. During critical illness, many aspects change verbal communication with patients including tracheal intubations, reduced level of consciousness and administration of sedation and analgesia. The first stage in providing satisfactory pain relief is using a systematic, consistent assessment and documentation of pain. However, no particular tool is universally acknowledged for use among these patients. One of the common constituents of behavioral pain tools is the evaluation of facial behaviors. Although the use of facial expressions is a vital behavioral measure of pain intensity, there are discrepancies in defining descriptors of facial behavior. Therefore, it is essential to comprehend facial expressions in non-communicative critically ill patients suffering pain to help in the improvement of concise indicators to enhance pain assessment and supervision.(Arif-Rahu & Grap). The ratio of uncontrolled pain in critically ill patients remains far too high. A methodical assessment of pain should be done consistently, and self-report by the patient should be the chief source for pain evaluation whenever probable. The repetitive assessment of pain with an observational pain assessment tool can minimize admission in the critical care units; the duration of mechanical ventilation; and increase the contentment of patients’ family, and health care workers (Mindy Stites, 2013).

Literature review :
Pain is a substantial phenomenon in the...

... middle of paper ...

...c regimen, prolonged hospitalization, cost, workload on medical team, mortality rate. Moreover, unproductive assessment tool existence leads us to look for other evaluation criteria for pain. This study will aid in adding original information about the presented pain assessment tools and will demonstrate their effectiveness and ability to assess the level of pain in non-communicative patients comparing to The Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT)

Objectives:
This study will be conducted in order to compare between available pain assessment tools and the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) in order to realize the following:
• Exploring the precision of assessing pain by using available tools in the hospitals chosen for the study by comparing them with the (COPT).
• To assess the competence of pain assessment for Jordanian non-communicative patients.

Open Document