Evaluation of Preference of Pain Scale in Children using Novel Animated Emoji Scale in Nepal: An Observational Study

Introduction: Pain is a common concern for pediatrics patients, maybechallenging because the child cannot properly explain the extent of pain theyare experiencing. Several pain assessment tools have been developed andintroduced in dentistry that facilitate self-report of pain in children. Threesuch pain rating scales Animated Emoji Scale, Visual Analogue Scale andWong–Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale were used in this study to evaluate thepain perception among pediatric patients. This study was aimed to evaluatethe preference of pain scale among these three scales in pediatrics patients. Methods: This hospital based cross sectional study was carried out from Januarytill June in 182 children aged between 3-14 years divided into three groups onthe basis of age: Group A (3-6 years, Group B 7-10 years, and Group C 11-14years). Ethical clearance was taken (Reference number: UCMS/IRC/02/25).Pain score was recorded among these children using Animated Emoji Scale(AES), Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and Wong–Baker Faces Pain RatingScale (WBFPS). The data were entered into Excel and analyzed using IBMSPSS Statistics for Windows, version 26 (IBM Corp., Armonk, N.Y., USA). Results: Pearson correlation test evaluated a positive correlation amongthe three pain rating scales. Chi-square test showed statistically significantassociation between age group and preferred pain scale (p<0.001). Conclusions: AES was most preferred in younger age groups from age 3-10 yearswhereas elder children 11-14 years relied more on VAS as a self-reporting tool.