About

What is the Stoplight Pain Scale?

The Stoplight Pain Scale™ is a pediatric pain assessment tool created by Dr. Amy Drendel, Emergency Room Physician at Children’s Wisconsin and Professor of Pediatrics at Medical College of Wisconsin, in collaboration with Booster Shot Media.

Background

Pain is the most common reason for seeking healthcare. Under-treated pain is associated with detrimental effects. For children, injury is the most common cause of pain. Over 90% of children evaluated for injury induced pain are discharged home. There is growing evidence that out-patient pain treatment by parents, is inadequate.

Given the complexity of the pain experience, there are a number of factors that likely account for inadequate pain treatment for children. Pain assessment is a particularly difficult aspect of treatment for parents. Published literature shows that parents don’t use assessment tools. However, experiences with healthcare providers suggest that a pain assessment tool increases awareness for the pain experience. We sought to develop an assessment tool that alerts parents to the child’s pain experience and aids decision-making.

Validation

The Stoplight Pain Scale™ had demonstrated correlation with other pediatric pain scales. The scale is being used and studied by clinicians and researchers, including co-creator Dr. Amy Drendel, Professor of Pediatrics and Medical Director, Children’s Wisconsin Emergency Department Trauma Center.

Creative Commons License

You can download the print-ready PDF at Booster Shot Media's online store.

The Stoplight Pain Scale™ trademark and copyright is owned by Booster Shot Media Inc. and Amy Drendel DO. It is free to use under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license terms.

If you want to use it for some purpose not covered in the license terms, you will need to contact Booster Shot Media for permission.