Healthy and cancer children's choice of words to describe pain

• Author(s): Fernandes, Ananda Maria ; Campos, Diana Catarina Ferreira de ; Batalha, Luís Manuel da Cunha ; Gonçalves, Ana Maria Pacheco Mendes Perdigão Costa ; Oliveira, Armando Luis Dinis Mónica
• Date: 2013
• Origin: Repositório Científico da Escola Superior de Enfermagem de Coimbra
• Subject(s): children; Adolescents; Pain assessment; Cancer
• Document Type: Other
• Language: English

Description

Pain perception is influenced by age and gender. As children grow, their ability to express and understand the pain experience changes. Illness experience may also play a role in children's choice of words to describe pain. Aim To compare the use of pain descriptors by children and adolescents of different age groups, gender and health condition. Methods As part of a larger study, 67 pain descriptors from Adolescent Pediatric Pain Tool were presented to two groups of children (8-12 years old) and adolescents (13-17 years old): healthy and diagnosed with cancer (n=48). In each group, 24 subjects were included at random: 6 boys and 6 girls. Following Q-sort procedure, children were asked to recall their pain experiences and allocate each descriptor to one of three categories: a) words that I know and use to describe pain; b) words that I know but don't use to describe pain; c) words that I don't know. For each subject, the percentage of words that are used within the number of words that are known was calculated and used as dependant variable in stepwise regression analysis. Results Findings show that cancer subjects use fewer words to describe their pain compared to healthy subjects. In whole group analysis no age and gender difference were observerd. In cancer group analysis, older children (13-17yo) and girls use more words to describe their pain. Health condition and age group were retained as predictors in stepwise regression analysis. Conclusions These results offer some direction in the choice of pain assessment tools for cancer children. Health professionals should be aware of age and gender related differences in pain language to avoid underestimating the experience of less communicative groups.