Researchers Seek to Improve the Methods Used to Measure Children’s Pain

Working under a 5-year National Institutes of Health grant, researchers at the University of Washington School of Dentistry are seeking to improve how dentists measure pediatric patients’ pain.

The study consists of three phases: (1) Determining what dentists know about assessing pain and how they make such assessments; (2) creating an implementation strategy to improve the use of these assessment tools, and conducting pilot studies to test appropriateness, acceptability and feasibility; and (3) developing a plan to scale up the implementation strategy so clinicians who treat children can more accurately determine and manage pain in this patient population.

From Decisions in Dentistry. February 2020;6(2):10.