Refinement and partial validation of the UNESP-Botucatu multidimensional composite pain scale for assessing postoperative pain in horses

Abstract

BackgroundQuantification of pain plays a vital role in the diagnosis and management of pain in animals. In order to refine and validate an acute pain scale for horses a prospective, randomized, blinded study was conducted. Twenty-four client owned adult horses were recruited and allocated to one of four following groups: anaesthesia only (GA); pre-emptive analgesia and anaesthesia (GAA,); anaesthesia, castration and postoperative analgesia (GC); or pre-emptive analgesia, anaesthesia and castration (GCA). One investigator, unaware of the treatment group, assessed all horses at time-points before and after intervention and completed the pain scale. Videos were also obtained at these time-points and were evaluated by a further four blinded evaluators who also completed the scale. The data were used to investigate the relevance, specificity, criterion validity and inter- and intra-observer reliability of each item on the pain scale, and to evaluate construct validity and responsiveness of the scale.ResultsConstruct validity was demonstrated by the observed differences in scores between the groups, four hours after anaesthetic recovery and before administration of systemic analgesia in the GC group. Inter- and intra-observer reliability for the items was only satisfactory. Subsequently the pain scale was refined, based on results for relevance, specificity and total item correlation.ConclusionsScale refinement and exclusion of items that did not meet predefined requirements generated a selection of relevant pain behaviours in horses. After further validation for reliability, these may be used to evaluate pain under clinical and experimental conditions.

Mouth Pain in Horses: Physiological Foundations, Behavioural Indices, Welfare Implications, and a Suggested Solution

“…Additional signs include a decline in or an absence of behaviours that the animals are usually highly motivated to perform, such as playing, grooming, eating, and sleeping [15,20,71]. The administration of local anaesthetics and/or systemic analgesics also partially or completely restores normal behaviours, or diminishes specific pain-related behaviours [14,15,17,21,74,76,77,80,[83][84][85][86][87][88][89].…”

Update in advances in pain management for the equine practitioner

“…(,b), van Dierendonk and van Loon (), Taffarel et al . (), Gleerup and Lindegaard ()] and facial expression equine pain scales (Dalla Costa et al . ; Gleerup et al .…”

“…Several composite equine pain scales [e.g. Bussi eres et al (2008), Sutton et al (2013a,b), van Dierendonk and van Loon (2016), Taffarel et al (2015), Gleerup and Lindegaard (2016)] and facial expression equine pain scales (Dalla Costa et al 2014;Gleerup et al 2015; van Loon and van Dierendonck 2017) have been described. These scales vary in their attributes such as validation, type of pain they have been designed for and ease of use.…”

>b<Avaliação da inibição da atividade das ciclooxigenases 1 e 2 e da eficácia analgésica da dipirona em equinos>/b<

“…No presente trabalho, um dos objetivos foi o de comparar a analgesia de dois fármacos utilizados corriqueiramente, quais sejam a dipirona e o flunixin, fármaco muito difundido para tratamento antiálgico em equinos (SELLON et al, 2004;COOK et. al, 2009;TORFS et al, 2009;FOREMAN et al;DALLA COSTA et al, 2014;NAYLOR et al, 2014;TAFFAREL et al, 2015). (KNYCH et al, 2012;GUEDES et al, 2013;KNYCH et al, 2013;GUEDES et al, 2016;KNYCH et al, 2016).…”