Using a clinical judgement model to understand the impact of validated pain assessment tools for burn clinicians and adult patients in the ICU: A multi-methods study.

Background: Intensive care (ICU) patients' burn pain is difficult to assess, communicate and address, risking chronic pain syndromes and psychological morbidity.

Aims: To understand how the introduction of validated pain tools (Critical Care Pain Observation Tool [CPOT], Numerical Rating Scale [NRS], Pain Assessment in Advanced Dementia [PAINAD]) affected clinical judgement processes, analgesia/sedation administration and the experience of burn-injured patients.

Methods: Consecutive chart review compared type and amount of analgesia/sedation administered, ventilation time and length of ICU/hospital stay between consecutive burn patients pre- and 6-months post-intervention (n=70).