Does a pain scale improve pain assessment in the pediatric emergency department?

Objective: Pain management in children requires rapid and sensitive assessment. The Wong-Baker FACES pain scale (WBFPS) is a widely accepted, validated tool to assess pain in children. Our objective was to determine whether incorporation of the WBFPS into the emergency medical record (EMR) improves pain documentation in the pediatric emergency department. We also examined whether this intervention improves the management of children who present with pain.

Methods: The WBFPS was incorporated into the EMR in an urban tertiary care pediatric emergency department. We performed a review of EMRs for patients aged 3 to 20 years at 30 days before and 30 days after the intervention. All physicians were trained to use the WBFPS. We excluded patients younger than 3 years or who were unable to perform the assessment. We compare rates of pain score documentation for the preintervention (PRE) and postintervention (POST) groups and times from triage to analgesia administration using Fisher exact test.

Results: A total of 462 and 372 EMRs were included in the PRE and POST groups, respectively. The groups were similar with respect to age (P = 0.46); there were more males in the POST group (47.2% vs 56.5%, P = 0.008). The rate of pain score documentation was 7.4% (n = 34) in the PRE group and 38.2% (n = 142) in the POST group (P < 0.001). In patients with pain score of 6 or greater, there was no statistical difference in analgesia administration (PRE, 41.7% [10/24] vs POST, 41.8% [28/67]) or time to administer analgesia in minutes (PRE, 80.4%; median, 42 and POST, 100.5%; median, 52.5; P = 0.71).

Conclusions: Incorporating the WBFPS into the EMR significantly improves pain assessment in children. Despite this, there was neither improvement in analgesia administration nor reduction in time to administer analgesia in children with pain.