Student nurses' assessment of children in pain

A self-administered questionnaire was developed to ascertain the criteria that student nurses used to assess children in pain. The sample consisted of 17 second-year registered general nurse students who had just completed their paediatric secondment. The questionnaire required the students to provide their own definition of pain, to rate the pain of four hypothetical children, giving reasons for their ratings and provide data about their assessment of a child they had cared for. Definitions of pain concentrated mainly on the physical effects of pain on patients. The students attributed a wide range of pain ratings to the hypothetical children, though the reasons for reaching these differing conclusions were often based on similar statements. There was limited reference to either personal episodes of pain or previous nursing experience. In their own assessment of children in pain the students appeared to use all the acknowledged criteria. The use of physiological signs was in some circumstances possibly inappropriate.