The alert, “Assessing Pain in the Critically Ill Adult,” recommends the following four practices to evaluate patients for pain:
• Attempt to obtain the patient’s self-report of pain using validated pain assessment tools or simple questions.
• Perform a pain assessment for critically ill adults who are unable to self-report, using a validated behavioral pain scale, such as the behavioral pain scale or the critical-care pain observation tool.
• Avoid referring primarily to vital signs for pain assessment of critically ill adult patients.
• Consider, as a proxy, asking someone who knows the patient well to identify behavior that may indicate pain.
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