Behaviors Indicative of Pain in Brain-Injured Adult Patients With Different Levels of Consciousness in the Intensive Care Unit.

CONTEXT: Many brain-injured patients are unable to self-report their pain during their hospitalization in the intensive care unit (ICU), and existing behavioral pain scales may not be well suited.

OBJECTIVES

The objectives of this study were to describe and compare behaviors in brain-injured patients with different levels of consciousness during nociceptive and nonnociceptive care procedures in the ICU and to examine interrater agreement of individual behaviors as well as discriminative and criterion validation of putative pain behaviors.

METHODS

Brain-injured ICU patients were observed using a 40-item behavioral checklist before and during soft touch (i.e., nonnociceptive procedure), turning, and other care procedures (nociceptive) by pairs of trained raters. When possible, patients self-reported their pain on a 0-10 visual thermometer. Patients were classified into unconscious (Glasgow Coma Scale, 3<GCS≤8), altered consciousness (9≤GCS≤12), or conscious (13≤GCS≤15).

RESULTS

A sample of 147 patients participated (65 conscious, 56 altered consciousness, and 26 unconscious). Active behaviors (e.g., face expressions and body movements) were more frequent in conscious patients. High-percentage interrater agreement (80%-98%) was obtained for most behaviors. The total number of active behaviors was significantly higher during turning and other nociceptive procedures compared with rest (Wilcoxon = 9.873, P < 0.001) and soft touch (Wilcoxon = 9.486, P < 0.001) regardless of levels of consciousness. The strongest predictors of pain intensity (n = 33) were grimace, mouth opening, orbit tightening, eye weeping, and eyes tightly closed; these behaviors were moderately correlated with self-reported pain intensity (Spearman rho = 0.47).

CONCLUSION

These findings may guide the revision of existing pain scales to make their content more suited for this population.