Introduction
Pain is a frequently experienced problem in critically ill patients in the intensive care unit (ICU) [
1]. Pain may increase morbidity and mortality and may decrease the comfort of patients and health-related quality of life. The adequate use of analgesics and sedatives therefore may decrease morbidity and mortality [
2]. Measurement of pain in ICU patients, however, may be complicated by decreased consciousness, severity of illness, mechanical ventilation, and the use of sedatives in these patients, particularly when high doses of sedatives are administered [
3,
4]. Although self-report is still the 'gold standard' in pain measurement according to the guidelines of the International Association for the Study of Pain [
5], one segment of ICU patients is unable to communicate effectively. In these cases, the gold standard (that is, the pain intensity reported by the patient) is not possible or is potentially unreliable. This is also a common problem in, for example, neonates and children, who are not able to report pain in a reliable manner [
6].
Therefore, pain assessment in the ICU remains a challenge for clinicians and researchers. There is no specific neurobiological parameter for the evaluation of pain, nor does an objective quantification of pain intensity or relief exist [
7]. Various pain scales are available, but it remains unclear whether they can be applied reliably in the diverse patient population of the ICU, where patients not only may be mechanically ventilated but also are subject to repeated painful procedures. Therefore, it is of interest to define which score should be used for which patient (for example, ventilated, responsive, or unresponsive) and by which health care worker, in case the patient cannot communicate. These results can be used to implement a systematic evaluation of pain in all ICU patients. While, to date, the use of scoring systems for pain severity and sedation depth and the implementation of protocols increase with a more patient-oriented regime for analgesia and sedation, a trend is observed away from a hypnosis-based approach and toward an analgesia-based approach. Although these changes may improve pain and sedation practice, further efforts are needed for widespread implementation of pain scoring systems and analgesia protocols [
8,
9]. Of the available pain scales, the Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) (1 to 10) and the Visual Analog Scale (VAS) (1 to 100) have been validated for acute pain only and not in mechanically ventilated patients in the ICU [
10]. The Behavioral Pain Scale (BPS) was developed specifically for measuring the severity of pain in sedated, mechanically ventilated, unresponsive patients [
11], but this pain scale still is not generally accepted for routine use. Another question in pain management in the ICU is which health care worker (nurse, physician, and so on) should rate pain in case the patient cannot communicate verbally. While the attending nurse is involved in close daily care of the patient, the physician seems to have a more distant relation to the patient. Therefore, we designed a study (a) to determine the inter-rater reliability of the NRS and BPS, (2) to compare pain scores of different observers and the patient, and (c) to compare NRS, VAS, and BPS for measuring pain in ventilated and non-ventilated patients in the ICU.
Discussion
In our study, we found that the inter-rater reliability for the NRS and BPS was good, which proves that it is possible to train medical personnel to use these scales in a reliable way in ICU patients. However, although the different pain scales show a high reliability, an important finding of our study is that especially unacceptably high patient scores (NRS ≥4) were underestimated by both the nurses and the researchers as 33% of the NRS patient values were equal to or greater than 4 compared with 18% for the nurses. As it is known that the patients may underestimate pain by themselves (caused by factors like culture and the environment [
22,
23]), the risk of underestimation seems to be an important issue when scoring pain in ICU patients. The underestimation of patients' pain scores by the nurses is already supported in the literature. However, the finding that underestimation occurs in especially high patient scores was never reported. Therefore, it is of utmost importance to use restrictive sedation protocols aiming at cooperative sedation levels instead of unconscious levels [
4], allowing for response to questions about pain evaluation and thereby reducing observed-based pain evaluations and allowing for self-report of pain.
The correlation between the NRS and the BPS in our study is in accordance with the study of Payen and colleagues [
11], which showed that the BPS is reliable for measuring the severity of pain in sedated and ventilated patients. Also, Aissaoui and colleagues [
10] concluded that the BPS is valid and reliable for measuring intervention pain in non-communicative ICU patients. In our study, however, in 57 ventilated patients of which 13 were communicative, only 5% of the observations (
n = 151 observations of 57 patients) were NRS of 0 (no pain), whereas on the BPS, a remarkable 68% of the observations were BPS of 3 (no pain). In addition, although 6% of our observations were NRS of greater than or equal to 4 (unacceptable pain according to [
24]), the BPS scores were all low with a median value of 3.0 (range 3.0 to 5.0), which is the lowest possible value of the BPS in a scale with a maximum value of 12. Also, in the study of Payen and colleagues [
11], a high non-response on the BPS was found in assessments completed at rest (BPS score of 3 in 88% to 97% of the observations) and 82% of the observations at rest and during interventions were clustered around BPS scores of 3 to 6.
The high non-response on the BPS can be explained by the short time of observation. During 1 minute of observation, the patient may seem pain-free (BPS of 3). However, using the NRS, a higher score may be rated as the nurse tends to include more background information of the patient (for example, the pain levels from the last hours while caring for the patient). So the BPS reflects the objective visible behavior at one specific time point, whereas the NRS represents a global impression of pain, including several contextual factors during a longer time period. It seems, therefore, that the BPS should be used only in conjunction with the NRS nurse to measure pain levels the ICU.
Various studies concluded that, compared with the NRS, the VAS is not an adequate tool in patients with decreased consciousness [
25,
26]. This appears to be related to the lack of ability for abstraction and comprehension and provides difficulties in patients who are injured to the upper limbs. In our study, the correlation between the NRS and VAS estimated by the patient is strong (r
s = 0.84,
P < 0.001,
n = 75), suggesting that the VAS is also an adequate tool for measuring pain in about two thirds of the patients in our ICU. However, the VAS could be used in only 75 of 113 patients, in particular in patients with intact comprehension and abstraction, when recovering from critical illness, and just before leaving the ICU following cardiac surgery. Therefore, it is unknown whether this finding can be extrapolated to other ICUs.
The correlation between the NRS score and RS score was low (rs = 0.28, P = 0.078, n = 40). So the degree of pain intensity does not seem to depend on the level of sedation. This is important because these two scores should be able to distinguish between the level of analgesia and the level of sedation. Whereas high RS levels (deep sedation) may be expected in more severely ill patients experiencing more pain, patients with low RS levels (light sedation), in contrast, have more ability to show painful behaviors, resulting in the absence of a significant correlation.
This study had several limitations. In the present study, we collected pain scores of ICU patients at rest and without painful stimuli. In the ideal study design in which different pain scoring systems in the ICU are compared, the pain scores in the absence and presence of an unavoidable painful stimulus should be tested in order to be able to study the sensitivity to change for each pain scale. In further studies, therefore, basal pain scores should be obtained together with intervention pain scores in order to evaluate and judge pain scales for different purposes (for example, at rest and during painful interventions).
Furthermore, the patients included in this study are characterized by a high percentage (73%) of post-cardiothoracic surgery patients and a 50% rate of mechanical ventilation, which was partly due to pain measurements before leaving the ICU, so extrapolation of the results to other ICUs may be limited. In addition, in our ICU, sedation levels are aimed at cooperative levels comparable to those of Kress and colleagues [
4] (2000) and Brook and colleagues [
27] (1999) whenever possible. Both of these characteristics of our ICU may have resulted in the relatively high percentage of responsive patients (66%) who were able to report pain using NRS and VAS. This should still be considered when the results of our study are extrapolated to other ICUs. On the other hand, in our study, there were no significant differences when the results were divided between 'cardiothoracic surgery' patients and 'non-cardiothoracic surgery' patients.
Competing interests
The authors declare that they have no competing interests.
Authors' contributions
SA carried out the practical work and drafted the manuscript. LG participated in the practical work and coordination, in revising the manuscript, and in the design and coordination of the study. AV participated in training the researchers for measuring pain. AB and DT participated in revising the manuscript critically. PB and HD participated in revising the manuscript critically and in the design and coordination of the study. SB carried out the statistical analysis. CK conceived of the study, participated in its design and coordination, and helped to draft the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.