Postoperative pain after paediatric adenoidectomy and differences between the pain scores made by the recovery room staff, the parent and the child.

CONCLUSIONS: The parents scored the postoperative pain higher than the nurse. The nurse's score correlated better than the parent's to the child's score. There was no gender difference regarding the pain after adenoidectomy.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the correlation between the parents and the health care professionals regarding how postoperative pain is estimated and to identify age and gender differences regarding the pain after adenoidectomy.

PATIENTS AND METHODS: The study included 100 children aged 3-10 years scheduled for adenoidectomy. The nurse and the parent assessed the postoperative pain of the child at different time intervals using a visual analogue scale (VAS). The child rated its pain by using the Wong-Baker FACES pain rating scale.

RESULTS: The postoperative pain scores were higher at 10 min after the operation than after 30 min. The parents scored the pain higher than the nurse did, but there was still a strong correlation between the observers' rating of the pain. The correlation between the nurse's and the child's assessments was stronger than the correlation between the parent's and the child's assessments. There was no gender difference in how the pain was perceived by the child. The parents tended to score the pain higher with older age of the child.