There are many pain assessment tools that are currently used in practice and you could have chosen any of them. The main focus of this reflection should be how you communicated with the service user. Your reflection should consider the following points (this list is not exhaustive but will give you key aspects):

Communication

• Could the service user understand you and could they communicate their feelings, thoughts and/or emotions?
• Did they have an impairment that may have affected their ability to communicate effectively i.e. visual, speech or hearing deficit?
• Did they have a cognitive impairment? This could include having dementia, head injury or being under sedation.
• Were they in so much pain that they could not, or did not want to, talk with you?
• Did your service user have a learning disability that affected their ability to communicate?
• Did your service user have a mental health illness that prevented them from communicating their pain i.e. depression, catatonia or paranoid thoughts?
• Were they too young to express their thoughts, feelings or pain?

Environment

• Did the assessment take place in a suitable environment? Think about the noise level, the actual setting– was it private?

 ‘News’

• Did you learn anything new?
• What did you find out?
• Could you tell the service user anything?

Timing

Did you undertake the assessment at a suitable time? Were there any other considerations that should have been taken into account? You may identify that the patient was in so much pain that undertaking a full assessment was inappropriate at this time or that the patient was impaired by analgesia/medication that they could not communicate effectively.

Review

• What are you going to do about the information that you have gathered?
• Where will you document this information?
• Who are you going to tell about the assessment results?
• How and when are you going to review this assessment?

Emotional state

It is always important to consider the service user’s emotional state and whether they are well enough to complete any assessment and how they felt after the assessment. Most importantly you should always remember to return to the service user and inform them of your actions and how their pain is going to be managed – this will reassure them that they will not be forgotten.