Presented at the 2013 AAPM Annual Meeting « Back

Assessment of Pain in Childhood Cancer

Hilze Benigno De O. Moura Siqueira, hilzes@yahoo.com¹, Rodrigo R. Falconi Gomez¹, Talita De Cássia Raminelli Da Silva¹, Fátima A. Faleiros Sousa¹, (1) Sao Paulo University, Ribeirão Preto, Sao Paulo, Brazil

The pain in childhood cancer has been investigated, however, is still undervalued and inadequately assessed. In this descriptive exploratory study sought to understand the perception of pain in childhood cancer. In 2010, after approval by the Ethics Committee of the Hospital of Ribeirao Preto School of Medicine, University of São Paulo (3926/2009), 50 children and adolescents receiving cancer treatment were investigated by means of self-reports, drawings, emotional Faces Scale (FAS) and Multidimensional Pain Scale Assessment (EMA). The participants, mostly female (58.8%), aged 5 to 18 years, elementary education (90%) and Roman Catholicism as a religion (70%). Regarding disease, leukemia was the most frequent (34%) and median time to diagnosis and treatment was 2 years. The self-reports showed the pain associated with death, family, loneliness and emptiness. This was confirmed in the analysis of graphic design who observed the pain related to issues such as social limitations; therapeutic environment; emotional content, fear of death and parental relationships. In FAS negative effects of pain severity scale were perceived. The results of MPES, participants attributed more scores to descriptors boring, nasty, intense, unbearable pain and painful. On the other hand, acute pain had been further described as unpleasant, painful, uncomfortable, uncontrolled and complicated. Therefore, the dates showed that children and adolescents can understand the facts and significance of your pain through different assessment instruments, suggesting that the sum of the objective and subjective attributes improvement knowledge and management of the painful phenomenon. References: 1) Faleiros Sousa, F.A.E.; Pereira, L.V.; Cardoso, R.; Hortense P. Multidimensional Pain Avaliation Scale, Revista Latino-Americana de Enfermagem, v.18, n.1, Jan/Feb 2010. 2) McGrath, P.A. et al. A new analogue scale for assessing children’s pain: an initial validation study. Pain, v.64, p. 435-443, 1996. 3) Micheli, A.V.P. Dor em crianças com câncer. Revista Dor: Pesquisa, Clínica e Terapêutica, v. 6, n. 3, p. 606-613, 2005.

Funding: FAPESP