• Randi Dovland Andersen, Tomm Bernklev, Ann Langius-Eklöf, Britt Nakstad, and Leena Jylli.
• Department of Child and Adolescent Health Services, Telemark Hospital, Skien, Norway.
• Acta Paediatr. 2015 Sep 1; 104 (9): 904-9.

AimThe COMFORT behavioural scale was developed to assess sedation, pain and distress in children unable to report pain. Our aims were to test construct validity of the scale in toddlers undergoing minor surgery and determine the inter-rater reliability of the scale.MethodsWe consecutively enrolled 45 children aged 12-36 months from a Norwegian surgical outpatient care unit. The level of sedation, pain and distress was assessed before and after surgery with the COMFORT behavioural scale. Inter-rater reliability was estimated and construct validity was tested based on a priori defined hypotheses. A 2.5-point (15%) change in the scale was considered clinically important.ResultsWe obtained 307 scores covering most of the scale's range, but a floor effect was clearly present. Inter-rater reliability was high between assessors (intraclass correlation coefficient = 0.96; 95% CI 0.92-0.98). Clinically important differences were seen between baseline and light sedation (3.1 points, p < 0.001) and between light and deep sedation (4.6 points, p = 0.002). The difference between baseline and our definition of a pain/distress state was not clinically important (1.5 points, p = 0.039).ConclusionThe COMFORT behavioural scale can provide one aspect of an overall clinical assessment of sedation, and probably pain and distress, in toddlers before and after surgery.©2015 Foundation Acta Paediatrica. Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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