SOCRATES is a mnemonic acronym used by emergency medical services, physicians, nurses, and other health professionals to evaluate the nature of pain that a patient is experiencing.
Uses
SOCRATES is used to gain an insight into the patient's condition, and to allow the health care provider to develop a plan for dealing with it. It can be useful for differentiating between nociceptive pain and neuropathic pain.
Adverse effects
SOCRATES only focuses on the physical effects of pain, and ignores the social and emotional effects of pain.
Procedure
| Letter | Aspect | Example Questions |
|---|---|---|
| S | Site | Where is the pain? Or the maximal site of the pain. |
| O | Onset | When did the pain start, and was it sudden or gradual? Include also whether it is progressive or regressive. |
| C | Character | What is the pain like? An ache? Stabbing? |
| R | Radiation | Does the pain radiate anywhere? |
| A | Associations | Any other signs or symptoms associated with the pain? |
| T | Time course | Does the pain follow any pattern? |
| E | Exacerbating / relieving factors | Does anything change the pain? |
| S | Severity | How bad is the pain? |
History
SOCRATES is often poorly used by health care providers. Although pain assessments usually cover many or most of the aspects, they rarely included all 8 aspects.
See also
References
- ^ Clayton, Holly A.; Reschak, Gary L. C.; Gaynor, Sandra E.; Creamer, Julie L. (December 2000). "A novel program to assess and manage pain". Medsurg Nursing. 9 (6): 318–312 – via ProQuest.
- ^ Swift, Amelia (1 October 2015). "The importance of assessing pain in adults". Nursing Times. 111 (41): 12–17. PMID 26647478 – via Europe PMC.
- Schofield, Marcia; Shetty, Ashish; Spencer, Michael; Munglani, Rajesh (May 2014). "Pain Managment [sic]: Part 1". British Journal of Family Medicine. 2 (3).
- Gregory, Julie (2019-08-31). "Use of pain scales and observational pain assessment tools in hospital settings". Nursing Standard. 34 (9): 70–74. doi:10.7748/ns.2019.e11308. ISSN 0029-6570. S2CID 201675367.
- ^ Manna, Aditya; Sarkar, S. K.; Khanra, L. K. (2015-04-01). "PA1 An internal audit into the adequacy of pain assessment in a hospice setting". BMJ Supportive & Palliative Care. 5 (Suppl 1): A19 – A20. doi:10.1136/bmjspcare-2015-000906.61. ISSN 2045-435X. PMID 25960483. S2CID 206923364.
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