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- Title
Agreement of Pain Assessment Using the Short Form of the Canine Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale between Veterinary Students, Veterinary Nurses, Veterinary Surgeons, and ECVAA-Diplomates.
- Authors
Marco-Martorell, Mireia; Duffy, Natalie; Martinez, Miguel; Maddox, Thomas; Robson, Katherine
- Abstract
Simple Summary: Pain scoring in dogs can be challenging, particularly in a busy clinical setting and when staff with diverse training and veterinary students are involved. Consequently, concerns about dogs receiving inadequate analgesia were raised at this institution. This study was performed to investigate if veterinary students, veterinary nurses, veterinary surgeons with no specific training in anaesthesia, and diplomates in veterinary anaesthesia and analgesia perform pain scoring using the short form of the canine Glasgow Composite Measure Pain Scale (CMPS-SF) in a similar manner. The results obtained indicated good to excellent pain assessment agreement between groups. Nevertheless, the overall agreement amongst all assessors was poor and the intra-group agreement was poor to moderate, suggesting significant individual differences when pain scoring dogs. Veterinary students tend to pain score higher than more experienced assessors. Several pain scoring systems have been validated to measure pain in dogs. However, pain may not be adequately assessed since these tools are associated with high-level inter-observer variation. The aim of this study is to evaluate the agreement of pain assessment using the CMPS-SF between veterinary students, veterinary nurses, veterinary surgeons, and European College of Veterinary Anaesthesia and Analgesia (ECVAA) diplomates. Forty-five client-owned dogs presented to a teaching hospital were enrolled in this prospective, observational study. All dogs were pain-scored in vivo, while a video of the assessment was recorded and subsequently evaluated by twenty assessors, with five per group. Mean scores between groups were compared, and agreement within groups and agreement of the average scores between groups were assessed by calculating the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC). The intervention point at which dogs were deemed to require additional analgesia was also evaluated. Overall agreement of pain assessment was poor (ICC = 0.494). Nurses had the best inter-observer agreement (ICC = 0.656), followed by ECVAA diplomates (ICC = 0.540), veterinary surgeons (ICC = 0.478), and veterinary students (ICC = 0.432). The best inter-group agreement was between veterinary surgeons and nurses (ICC = 0.951) and between ECVAA diplomates and nurses (ICC = 0.951). Students were more likely to determine that additional analgesia was required compared to other groups. Pain assessment is key for animal welfare, and training in this area should be reinforced to improve consistency.
- Subjects
PAIN measurement; VETERINARY anesthesia; VETERINARIANS; VETERINARY nursing; VETERINARY students; DOGS
- Publication
Animals (2076-2615), 2024, Vol 14, Issue 16, p2310
- ISSN
2076-2615
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3390/ani14162310