A 7-year-old child is brought to the emergency department complaining of arm pain after falling off a swing at school. The child rates the pain as an 8 on a scale of 1-10. The best response by the nurse to this information is to
A) assume the child is too young to verbalize how much pain he/she is in.
B) give the child a narcotic pain medication.
C) obtain further information about the pain using an age-appropriate tool.
D) send the parents to the waiting room to see if the child "gets better" without them.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Clients in pain need a thorough pain assessment using the PQRST mnemonic. Children should be assessed using an age-appropriate tool such as the Faces scale. However, any score at 7 or above needs to be considered high risk, evaluated, and then treated appropriately.

A 7-Year-Old Child Is Brought to the Emergency Department Complaining