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Prevalence of pain in a university veterinary intensive care unit
Author(s) -
Moran Clara E.,
Hofmeister Erik H.
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of veterinary emergency and critical care
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.886
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1476-4431
pISSN - 1479-3261
DOI - 10.1111/vec.12010
Subject(s) - medicine , observational study , visual analogue scale , glasgow coma scale , population , hydromorphone , inclusion and exclusion criteria , pain scale , pain assessment , analgesic , emergency medicine , anesthesia , veterinary medicine , pain management , opioid , receptor , alternative medicine , environmental health , pathology
Objective The purposes of this study were to determine the prevalence of pain in veterinary ICU patients, to determine if there are predictors for patients to be painful, and to relate 3 commonly used pain scoring systems with each other. Design Cross‐sectional observational study. Setting The study was conducted in the small animal ICU at the University of G eorgia V eterinary teaching hospital. Animals All dogs admitted during June 1, 2010–August 5, 2010 were eligible for inclusion. Exclusion criteria included patients receiving supplemental oxygen, comatose animals, aggressive animals, and animals with a zoonotic disease. Interventions None. Measurements and Main Results Twice daily, at randomly generated times, an independent observer assessed every eligible dog for pain using three different methods: the G lasgow composite pain scale ( G lasgow), a visual analogue scale ( VAS ), and a simple descriptive scale ( SDS ). Six hundred twenty‐nine observations were made on 230 individual dogs over a 63‐day time period. Dogs who were receiving hydromorphone or were on the orthopedic or neurosurgical service were more likely to be described as painful. Overall, 22% of dogs were described as painful, and this was not different depending on time of day or day of the week. There was no difference in slope between VAS and G lasgow scores depending on order. The kappa statistic was 0.58 between G lasgow and SDS , 0.70 between VAS and SDS , and 0.47 between G lasgow and VAS . Conclusions In this study population, dogs undergoing surgery needed a more intense analgesic approach to ensure that they were nonpainful. The SDS identified the highest number of painful observations of the scoring systems, at the given levels for defining pain.