[Susan Sander]

#89683

Hi everyone

As I am not a medical professional, I have not used pain scales in the past. However, I have seen how the doctor at Tygerberg (with whom I work) uses the FLACC scale to assess the pain of babies. This is very helpful for us as a team to decide on their pain management and evaluate the priority of needs at any given moment.

I do have experience working with genograms and find them very helpful in summarising the social context of a client/patient visually. Names, relationships, and family dynamics can become confusing when you encounter many families. As I remember visual information far better, I find it helpful to verify my facts and understanding before engaging with a client or family.

Regarding the other assessments, I couldn’t help but put my psychometrist hat on and wonder about their validity and reliability. So I did some research and found that the FLACC scales show good sensitivity for pain but cannot necessarily differentiate between pain and non-pain related distress. In the 5-month-old we saw this week, her clenched fists and drawn-up legs may also be due to non-pain factors, such as being cold or stressed due to her unfamiliarity with the environment. Nevertheless, it does indicate distress and is something that we, as palliative professionals, care about and address through our care.

Many of these tools have not been tested for their psychometric reliability or validity, so my primary concern with using them is related to their usefulness and appropriateness across cultural and language barriers. But that’s just because I am also a psychometrist ;-)

• This topic was modified 6 days, 10 hours ago by Susan Sander.

[Author]

Posts