Articles: pain-measurement.
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Randomized Controlled Trial Comparative Study Clinical Trial
Lack of effect of clonidine and pentoxifylline in short-term therapy of diabetic peripheral neuropathy.
The goal of this study was to confirm or rule out anecdotal reports of beneficial effects of clonidine and pentoxifylline in the treatment of painful diabetic peripheral neuropathy. Clonidine was administered to 16 subjects at two dosage levels (0.1 and 0.2 mg/day) and was compared to placebo in a crossover design, with each phase lasting 4 wk. ⋯ There was a significant decrease in pain score from baseline with both active drugs (P less than 0.05), but this was no better than the response to placebo (P less than 0.30 for clonidine and P less than 0.95 for pentoxifylline). This study does not demonstrate a short-term benefit of either clonidine or pentoxifylline in the treatment of peripheral neuropathy.
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Painful procedures, experienced by many pediatric patients early in their admission, have been identified by parents in our clinical practice as a source of stress. The purpose of this study was to examine parents' perceptions and concerns about their child's acute pain experience. A convenience sample of 71 parents of 62 children was given a questionnaire that focused on the child's pain intensity, the behaviors that indicated the child was in pain, and the parents' preparation for and involvement in the child's pain experience. The majority of parents were asking for more information about and greater participation in procedures that caused their child pain.
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There is currently no classification system for chronic pain patients that has achieved consensus. The lack of a classification that is used consistently across settings has impaired advance of knowledge and treatment of chronic pain patients. Recently, an empirically derived multivariate classification system, the Multiaxial Assessment of Pain (MAP) patients, has been developed. ⋯ These data suggest that the psychosocial and behavioral responses associated with chronic pain are common to diverse samples of pain patients despite differences in demographic characteristics and medical diagnosis. The implications of these results for research and clinical practice are discussed. The potential utility of a polydiagnostic approach using more traditional medically based classifications such as proposed by the IASP (Merskey, H., Pain, Suppl. 3 (1986) S1-S225) complemented by classification based on the MAP psychosocial-behaviorally based taxonomy are examined.
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The purpose of this study was to describe various dimensions of the pain experiences of intensive care unit (ICU) patients. A purposive, primarily surgical sample of 24 ICU patients from two hospitals was interviewed after transfer from ICU. All but one patient remembered their ICU stay. ⋯ Results of this study clearly indicate that not only pain but its communication and treatment were significant problems for a substantial portion of this ICU sample. Further descriptive and experimental research of pain characteristics and treatment practices for ICU patients is urgently needed. Improvements in nursing practice that result from such research may make a substantial difference in the comfort and well-being of critically ill patients.
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J Pain Symptom Manage · Aug 1990
New method for measuring young children's self-report of fear and pain.
The purposes of this paper are (a) to describe the conceptual development of the Children's Global Rating Scale (CGRS), a technique for measuring young children's self-report of such constructs as pain and fear that was designed to address the methodological limitations of existing techniques, and (b) to report the findings of a study investigating the convergent and predictive validity of the CGRS in a sample of children undergoing an invasive medical procedure. Anticipatory procedural distress in 145 children between the ages of 4 and 8 was assessed in outpatient phlebotomy using three independent rating sources: children, parents, and a trained clinical observer. Phlebotomists' ratings as to whether or not children's distress during the actual procedure extended the time it usually takes to perform the procedure was used as the outcome criterion in a discriminate analysis in determining the degree to which anticipatory ratings would predict actual clinical distress during the medical procedure. Results provide preliminary support for the convergent and predictive validity of the CGRS revealing significant correlations with the other independent measures of children's anticipatory distress and also revealed that the CGRS was one of the significant variables in predicting children who extended and did not extend the medical procedure.