Can identify other potential areas of pain.

Easy to use and understand.

Fewer grades of pain so easier to mark.

Encourages moving the animal out of the kennel.

Specifies what to do in the case of spinal, pelvic or multiple limb fractures.

Separate scoring systems for cats/dogs.

• Thorough

• Precise

• Includes if they are eating

• Full directions of use

Disadvantageous

• Only for cats

• Specific area (abdomen)

• Time consuming

• Taking BP reading on a stressed patient

• Not accessible to all, due to not knowing how to take BP?

• More than 1 person may be needed

Quite subjective.

Does not take into account the psychological effects of being in hospital environment.

Can not be applied to rabbits or guinea pigs.

Easy to read

Shows body language of animal

Well rounded in all attributes

Anyone can do it

Seen as a whole pain score rather than for one thing

Disadvantage:

Not scored for an animal as an individual ETC geriatric or blocked bladder cat.

No where to write your score - apart from on the animal Hosp sheet

Quite closed in compares

Doesn't specify to bring anoinal out of the kennel

Not wound foc= ussed

• There are pictures of rabbits which is helpful for practices that may not see many rabbits.

• Easy to use.

• It is species specific.

• Allows repeated assessment so they stay consistent.

Disadvantages -

• Would probably need to be used alongside another pain scoring system/objective pain markers.

• Can only be used on awake animals.

• Only meant to look at them for a short amount of time which could be difficult for practices that do not see them very often so unreliable results.

• Rabbits may find it stressful if you are looking at them for long periods of time so it could be unreliable.

• The individual carrying out the pain score should have some rabbits knowledge.

Main behaviours listed for each category in bold which makes it easier and quicker to do.

Broken down into body response to palpitation, behavioural and tension instead of 1 overall category which gives a better understanding of different types of pain.

Includes images.

Disadvantages -

There is only 4 options to choose out of on the pain scale which doesn’t provide much versatility.

Complicated & difficult to assess pain.

Images quite difficult to assess different pain for cats.

A lot of words which makes the length of time to do the pain score longer.

Pain scoring system says you cannot pain score if an animal is sleeping.

Very vague about what has actually got to be done to get an accurate pain score.

How do you work out the pain score and what is a bad pain score ?

Close in comparison on pain scores