Abstract
In this pilot study a faces pain scale (FPS) and the Coloured Analogue Scale (CAS) were evaluated. The FPS consists of six faces corresponding to a numeric scale of 0 to 10, and the CAS is a modified visual analogue scale from 0 to 10. The aims were to examine if FPS and CAS were considered as equal, valid and applicable in measuring pain in children in an emergency room. To assess concurrent validity, 62 children in an emergency room were asked to mark their current pain on both self-report scales. When construct validity was assessed, a subgroup of children (n=19) was asked to score their pain before and after administered analgesics. All children were asked which scale they preferred. There were no significant differences in the scores between the scales. The correlation between them was 0.64 for children >8 years of age and 0.66 for children 4.5–7 years (p<0.05). Median scores after analgesic administration decreased from 5.8 to 4.2 with CAS (p<0.001) and from 6 to 4 with FPS (p<0.001). Children >8 years preferred CAS, while younger children preferred FPS (p<0.05). Both scales showed concurrent and construct validity in this study group of untrained children in an emergency room.