BACKGROUND PAIN IN BURN PATIENTS - ROUTINE MEASUREMENT AND RECORDING OF PAIN INTENSITY IN A BURN UNIT

It goes without saying that pain following a burn must be treated but it is not so evident to measure and document the intensity of pain and the efficacy of treatment. Since 1994 the authors have routinely meas ured background pain, that is, at rest, along with temperature and pul se rate. For analysis and quality assessment a relational database pro gramme is used in the ward. In this paper the authors' experience is r eported from a consecutive series of 98 patients with burn injuries wh o assessed the intensity of pain on a visual analogue scale. There wer e great intra- and inter-individual variations in pain intensity. High est values were found during the first week of treatment when female p atients experienced pain more intensively than male. For other time pe riods there was no statistical significant difference between the sexe s. Pain intensity and severity of burn was not related except during t he second week when patients with major burns had a tendency to expres s more pain than moderate burns. Measurement of background pain along with other routine registrations is easy and not time-consuming. Patie nts needing intensified pain treatment can be identified. For research and quality assessment a computerized patient register is of great he lp. (C) 1998 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd for ISBI. All rights re served.