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Self-report pain assessment tools for cognitively intact older adults: Integrative review
Youjeong Kang1, George Demiris2
1School of Nursing, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Background:
Pain is common in older adults, but it is often underreported or undertreated partly because many consider pain to be a normal consequence of ageing. Among the plethora of available self-report pain assessment tools, there is no synthetised evidence which tools are indicated for use among cognitively intact older adults.
Purpose Of The Study:
To understand documented self-report pain assessment tools that have been used among cognitively intact older adults, and to describe their characteristics including overall performance as well as studies demonstrating their use.
Methods:
A systematic search of the indexed databases PubMed, PsycINFO and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL Plus) was conducted to identify documented self-report pain assessment tools through peer-reviewed papers, including citations from January 1990 to December 2015. Thirty-five percentage of abstracts were independently evaluated by two raters according to specific criteria.
Results:
Among identified tools, the Iowa Pain Thermometer, the 6-point Verbal Descriptor Scale, the Numeric Rating Scale, the short form Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) and the Geriatric Pain Measure (GPM) may be suitable tools for self-reported pain by cognitively intact older adults based on the statement of the literature. Only two self-report tools (the GPM and the Geriatric Painful Events Inventory) were designed specifically for older adults.
Conclusions:
More studies are needed to evaluate pain measures' psychometric performance across different settings, racial/ethnic groups and disease categories. Since 80% of older adults have at least one chronic disease, multidimensional tools such as the GPM may need to be used more often for accurate self-report of pain.
Implications For Practice:
Examining the psychometric properties of comprehensive self-report pain assessment tools informs recommendations for the selection of tools to be used in clinical practice.
