Instruments for pain measurement in nursing research: literature review

Abstract

Pain is defined as a subjective experience, and the efficacy of the treatment and the behaviors that must be followed is directly related to its measurement by means of specific instruments validated for this purpose. This study aims to identify articles in the national Nursing literature that addresses the use of instruments for the measurement of pain. This is a literature review study, in which 11 articles were selected from the following electronic databases: Bireme, SciELO, Lilacs and BDENF. It was identified that the majority of the publications were related to the postoperative patients and to newborn patients and that the most frequently used instrument for the measurement of pain is the Visual Numerical Scale. Thus, it was possible to identify in the national literature the instruments most used in research in the Nursing area for pain evaluation, as well as the target subject of these researches.