The Alternate Forms Reliability of the Oucher Pain Scale

Avaliação do comportamento de crianças em situações de dor: revisão da literatura

“…8,9 In the remainder of the studies, the majority of the instruments whose psychometric qualities were being assessed used ordinal scales, i.e., they categorize attributes and establish a sequential order based on the characteristics of the attribute measured. 6 It should be pointed out that, although ordinal scales are less precise than interval scales, they are generally used with children to obtain self-reported pain assessments since they are easier for children to understand, as is the case of the Oucher Faces Scale, 10 the Faces Pain Scale (FPS) 11,12 and the Facial Affective Scale (FAS). 11 Nevertheless, in the course of this literature review it was found that ordinal scales are also used by trained observers or by the medical and nursing teams to assess child pain.…”

“…However, six studies performed baseline assessments before a painful procedure, 8,10,16,18,21,23 which indicates a more robust methodology than the others, particularly when using an ordinal measure. Knowledge of baseline pain allows for better pain assessment based on comparison with points in time after the painful procedure.…”

“…Knowledge of baseline pain allows for better pain assessment based on comparison with points in time after the painful procedure. Three of these six studies assessed pain in the context of a surgical procedure, 8,10,16 one in the context of an invasive blood collection procedure, 21 another during immunization 18 and one in the situation of remembered painful episodes. 19 Specifically with relation to the studies related to surgical procedures, eight defined their objectives as assessing pain during the postoperative period; not including a baseline pain assessment.…”

“…In this review, it was found that the Oucher Faces Scale was the only instrument which had three specific versions aimed at different populations, namely: Caucasians, African-Americans and Hispanics. These ethnically-differentiated versions were investigated in two studies, 10,23 which found excellent levels of reliability (0.88 and 0.70, respectively) for the different ethnicities studied.…”

“…16,19,24 Methodological precautions taken to ensure that specific scales used were appropriate to age group and developmental variations were an important criteria of some studies, specifically when the respondents were children themselves. The Oucher Faces Scale, 10,21,23 the Colored Analogue Scale (CAS) 11,21 and the FPS 18 are examples of simple scales, which were the most used and which can be administered by children to assess their own pain from the age of 3 years. 10,21,23 In order to attest to the compatibility between respondents' cognitive level and correct understanding of the scale, prior cognitive testing was an inclusion criterion of two studies in which children themselves were the respondents of pain self-assessment scales.…”