Health & body · 2002
Can a checklist help assess postoperative pain in children with severe intellectual disabilities?
In a study of 24 children, the Non-communicating Children's Pain Checklist–Postoperative Version showed good reliability and potential for clinical use. Its scores were higher after surgery and did not differ between caregiver and researcher observers.
Details
The study evaluated the psychometric properties of the Non-communicating Children's Pain Checklist–Postoperative Version (NCCPC-PV) in children with severe intellectual disabilities. Caregivers of 24 children aged 3–19 years took part. Each child was observed by one caregiver and one researcher for 10 minutes before and after surgery. The caregiver and researcher independently completed the NCCPC-PV and rated the child's pain intensity at those times using a visual analog scale. A nurse also completed a visual analog scale for the same observations.
The NCCPC-PV showed internal reliability, with a Cronbach alpha of 0.91, and good interrater reliability. A repeated-measures analysis of variance found that NCCPC-PV total and subscale scores were significantly higher after surgery and did not differ by observer. Postoperative NCCPC-PV scores correlated with visual analog scale ratings from caregivers and researchers, but not with those from nurses. A caregiver-assigned NCCPC-PV score of 11 provided 0.88 sensitivity and 0.81 specificity for classifying children with moderate to severe pain.
The authors concluded that the NCCPC-PV had good psychometric properties for postoperative pain in children with severe intellectual disabilities and could be useful in clinical settings. The results also suggested that familiarity with an individual child with intellectual disabilities is not necessary for pain assessment.
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