Senior Practitioner Nurse at Fitzpatrick Referrals, Gillian Calvo, has recently been successful in the publication of her breakthrough paper entitled “Development of a behaviour based measurement tool with defined intervention level for assessing acute pain in cats” in the Journal of Small Animal Practice.
Following the previous success of the behaviour-based Glasgow CMPS-SF for dogs, now generally accepted as a clinical standard for the measurement of acute pain in that species, a cat tool was constructed using similar psychometric methodology.
It has taken Gillian and a team of world-renowned specialists in the field of pain management years of work to develop and refine this clinically significant tool; Composite Measure Pain Scale – Feline (CMPS-F) which is the world’s first ever valid instrument based on psychometric analysis with a recommended analgesic intervention level to assess acute clinical pain in cats. The CMPS-F tool assesses acute pain in 6 behavioural categories; vocalisation, activity / posture, attention to wound, response to people, response to touch and demeanour. Each of these categories is given a score and a total score out of a possible 16 is derived. Users should consider intervention with analgesia if a total score of 4 or higher is scored.
Gillian and the team also evaluated facial expression as an indicator of acute pain in cats. This study is the very first to demonstrate that facial features can be used to determine acute pain in cats resulting in a second publication “Evaluation of facial expression in acute pain in cats” in the same issue of the Journal of Small Animal Practice.
The team are not planning to stop there – and are determined to further develop the CMPS-F tool to include the incorporation of a facial expression component with the intention of improving sensitivity of the scale.
I am absolutely delighted to have been part of the development of this ground-breaking CMPS-F tool which is available for veterinary professionals to use as an aid to their clinical judgement when assessing acute pain in cats. I feel immensely privileged to have had the opportunity to be the voice for so many felines and can’t wait to see the difference the CMPS-F tool will make to the lives of so many cats, vets and vet nurses worldwide
– Gillian Calvo.
Both publications can be found by following this link.
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