Anaesthetists’ views of managing children’s pain post-surgery

This study explored the views, knowledge and use of pain assessment tools of 185 anaesthetists working Europe via an e-survey, which included three scenarios of children with varying degrees of unresolved pain. Our findings were that the three most frequently used pain assessment tools were VAS, FLACC and FACES. Anaesthetists appear to value the judgement of both parents and nurses in assessing a child’s pain, as they reported that in cases of uncertainty about a child’s pain, they would ‘ask the parent’ (n=88) or ‘ask a nurse’ (n=81). Fewer than half used a pain assessment tool with ‘most patients’ and some respondents were dismissive of the value of pain tools preferring to rely on ‘common sense’ or ‘clinical judgement’. Opportunities were identified regarding multidisciplinary education related to children’s pain management practice.