Validation of The Critical-care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) for the detection of oral-pharyngeal pain in critically ill adults.

Objective: Mechanically ventilated patients experience pain at rest and during daily care procedures. Our objective was to test the reliability and validity of the Critical-Care Pain Observation Tool (CPOT) to detect oral-pharyngeal pain in intubated and tracheostomised adults during routine oral care procedures.
Materials and Methods: Two trained research team members independently observed patients during two non-painful (rest and gentle touch) and three potentially painful (oral suctioning, tooth brushing, and swabbing with a sponge toothette) procedures. Conscious patients were asked if they experienced pain during each procedure (yes/no) and to rate their pain intensity on a 0 to 10 numeric rating scale.
Results: A total of 98 patients, primarily intubated (92.9%) and male (63.3%) participated. Criterion validation was supported by patient self-report of pain during tooth brushing (AUC=.80; P<0.5) and oral suction (AUC=.72; P<0.3) but not for oral swabbing (AUC=.68; P=0.16). Discriminative validation was demonstrated for all oral care procedures compared to rest (P<.001). Intra-class correlation coefficients between raters ranged from .78 to .91 (P<.001) for total CPOT scores, indicating excellent inter-rater reliability.
Conclusions: The CPOT is reliable and valid for the detection of oral-pharyngeal pain during oral care procedures indicated as painful by critically ill adults.
(Copyright © 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)