Research progress of the critical-care pain assessment scale

Background Lacking of integrated and systematic pain assessment tools has been a serious obstacle of pain management in intensive care unit (ICU) setting.Pain relief is of great importance not only for patients but also for their families.In order to provide high quality of nursing service,a pain assessment and a timely pain relief have to be accomplished at first.However,no pain assessment equipment has been widely accepted or applied to patients with difficulty in communication.Objective This review analyzed and summarized existent pain assessment tools for those critically ill patients with communication difficulty.Content Firstly we discussed importance of pain assessment for critically ill patients.And then we introduced 6 different pain assessment tools including behavior pain scale (BPS),face,legs,activity,cry,consolability behavioural tool(FLACC),nociception coma scale(NCS),non-verbal pain scale(NVPS),the critical-care pain observation tool (CPOT)and the pain assessment in advanced dementia scale (PAINAD).Finally we discussed limitations of those pain assessment tools.Trend In our country,the critically ill patients' pain assessment was just in start-up phase.Regular use of pain assessment tools can be helpful to avoid state of pain with lacking of analgesia caused by over sedation,and also to improve compliance of patients. Key words: Pain ;  Pain assessment;  Critically ill