Evaluation of pain assessment tools in patients receiving mechanical ventilation

Abstract

Pain assessment poses a great challenge for clinicians in intensive care units. This descriptive study aimed to find the most reliable, sensitive, and valid tool for assessing pain. The researcher and a nurse simultaneously assessed 47 nonverbal patients receiving mechanical ventilation in the intensive care unit by using 3 tools: the Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS), the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT), and the adult Nonverbal Pain Scale (NVPS) before, during, and after turning and suctioning. All tools were found to be reliable and valid (Cronbach α=0.95 for both the BPS and the CPOT, α=0.86 for the NVPS), and all subscales of both the BPS and CPOT were highly sensitive for assessing pain (P