Pain Assessment

Assessment is essential to guide the effective management of burns pain. The most common pain assessment tools are verbal self report instruments such as the 0 – 10 numeric rating scale.

Verbal Numerical Rating Score (VNRS)

Ask the patient to rate their pain on a linear scale of zero to ten, where zero equals no pain and ten equals the worst pain imaginable. Ask the patient to rate their pain. Aim for pain scores of 4 or less at rest

Visual Analog Scale

Visual analog, face or color scales are also used and are useful when the patient has difficulty quantifying their pain numerically.

For pain assessment tools in different languages, go to

http://www.britishpainsociety.org/pub_pain_scales.htm