PAT SCORE - the tool for assessing pain intensity in newborn

Abstract

The newborn's pain is often recognized incompetently and what worse even ignored. Pain is part of the body's defense system and alert the organism to possible danger. Human fetuses are capable of feeling pain since 20 weeks of gestation age. The consequences of untreated pain have an effects on the newborn's organism and may lead to complications. A nurse taking care of a newborn should profoundly assess intensity of pain and meticulously document results of her assessment to define effectiveness of move she has taken. Currently there are lots of tools for pain assessment of infants. The recent recommendations emphasize the importance of using pain assessment scales for newborns. The available scales are based on observation and the value of vital signs. The newborn's pain should be treated as additional vital signs. PAT score, commonly used in Australia, is a tool that takes into account all the exponents of pain, in particular draws attention to the perceptual evaluation of the nurse.

Keywords

• pain
• newborn
• pain assessment
• research tools