How to do facial pain scoring in children?

The face is rich in sensory cells, which are connected to nerves directly to the brain's command center. Therefore, when the face is stimulated, people will become very sensitive. Facial pain is something that many people have experienced. The degree to which each person can feel this pain is almost different. Therefore, a pain score can be made to diagnose the specific cause of the disease. Let's take a look at how to do a facial pain score for children.

1. Visual Analog Scale (VAS)

There are no text descriptions at the two ends of the ruler. Just a smiling child's face is drawn on one end, indicating no pain; the other end is a graphic of a painful face, indicating extreme pain.

2. Facial emotion scoring method

The child is asked to choose from a series of pictures coded 1 to 9, representing facial expressions of varying degrees of pain: eyebrow retraction, squinting, deepening of the nasolabial folds, open lips, vertically stretched mouth (tight lip corners, chin prominently lowered), horizontally stretched mouth, pursed lips, tense tongue (tongue in the shape of a tall rod with tight edges), and trembling chin, to represent his or her own degree of pain. Can be used for children aged 5 years and above. Alternatively, six photographs with similar facial expressions (Oucher scale) can be used and placed on a vertical line with regularly spaced marks (0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100). The numerical value indicates the degree of pain and is suitable for children aged 3 to 12 years.

3. Behavioral Assessment Methods

Children's behavior is expressed in numbers, and evaluation indicators include crying, facial expressions, pain complaints, body activities, leg activities and reactions to touch.

Note:

1. When observing the impact of postoperative pain on children's behavior, the child's health status should be correctly evaluated before surgery and the changes in the child's behavior should be correctly judged. Individual differences in pain responses appear in infancy and can affect an individual's pain behavior; for example, female infants appear to react more strongly to pain than male infants.

2. Some behavioral reactions may have different subjective contents in different children. For example, crying can reflect pain, fear and anxiety.