How nursing personnel judge patients' pain

The study examined how nurses, student nurses, and nurse's aides judge patients' level of pain from five indicators: facial grimacing, maintenance of abnormal body position, restriction of movement, complaints about pain, and signs of possible depression. In Toulouse, France, 214 participants were presented with 48 vignettes describing an elderly patient suffering from osteoarthritis who showed various levels of these signs. The three most important factors in judging pain were the difficulty in making social contact with the patient, the patient's avoidance of changing position, and her avoidance of movements. The nurses put more emphasis on the difficulty in making social contact than did the student nurses and nurse's aides. In all groups, each sign of pain contributed independently and additively to the level of pain that the patient was thought to be experiencing.