Summers S
Department of Family Medicine at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Kansas City, KS 66160, USA.
J Perianesth Nurs. 2001 Feb;16(1):35-40. doi: 10.1053/jpan.2001.20657.
Pain management is an important aspect of perianesthesia patient care. PACU nurses need to be familiar with pain measurement to judge effectiveness of pain management. In fact, the 1999-2000 Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations' (JCAHO) guidelines have included the measurement of pain before and after pain treatment in their standards of practice. This article reviews selected pain instruments that could be used to measure pain in perianesthesia patients and the available reliability and validity of the instruments.